Mobile Ministry Magazine: Reading Like with Paper

Seeing mobile technology through the lens of Scripture

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Friday, March 07, 2008

Reading Like with Paper

I suffer from this mindset of a user experience and user interface designer. I think about how and why we use technology more often than anyone else. I am always looking at where to trim the fat, even to the point of taking two steps back to take 20 forward (eventually).

I've felt a lot like this when its come to Bible readers. While I'm in the group of those wanting to have a much improved reading experience with these electronic goodies, I realize that for many people, the need or want to read electronically is not at all attractive.

This perspective hit home (again) when I was reading an article at Ars Technica speaking about the emotional bond that people have with paper. Not that I disagree, paper is great. And I can be accused of looking past that emotional attachment more often than not. But one cannot discount it. Its there, and as a person with just a little bit of voice in this area, I cannot discount it in going towards the bits and bytes.

That being said, I wonder if developers can start thinking about reading with paper. Thinking about a bible reader as if it were paper. Starting from the perspective that content is seperate from presentation (just like in the print world). That formatting and ease of use isn't about sliders and buttons; but about how to enrich the reading experience. About not just giving a great search index, but making search work like our brains do.

I think LJ was really onto something in his part 2 of his The Ultimate Bible Software Application post. But not in the respect of publishing, in the respect of changning the method completly. The web IS NOT print. Its NOT radio. Its NOT TV. Its different - entirely. And has to be done differently. Those that have tried to pigeon-hole it into those same paradigms have fallen aside.

Like reading with paper changed the way that people assumed information was valid and usable, we have to expect that Bible software has to have familiarity, but be different than just pointing and clicking. Its a lot more than that, and our response as technology evangelists means that we have to find that place, and like a nice piece of paper, elegantly show that there's room on the page for this type of reading.

Labels: Bible, software, tech