Affordances of the screen versus the page
Materiality is the main factor in the difference in affordances between screen and page.
Reading online is becoming quite common and required for many research projects and in academia. Dissertations submitted for marking at many universities are done electronically and sent to markers in PDF form. Amazon has been offering books in Kindle format for some time. Yet paper-based books continue to be published and sold.
‘Materiality’ here pertains to the discrete object which is the tactile and separate artefact having printed text and diagrams on the surface of separate pages. It is distinct from the published or written or graphic work which can be saved in a file in a computer. Although laptops and computer hardware in general are artefacts and material objects that can be transported, their affordances lie in the amount or quantity of files and texts which can be stored on the one hard drive. At the time of writing these are still somewhat heavy and unwieldy so that they are difficult to read in bed or put in one’s pocket for example. However, even with advances in technology that allow small lightweight personal readers such as Kindle to be manufactured and thus easily transported, there are still differences in the affordances of each modality that lend the book and paper magazine their continuing allure.
Now we have the prospect of Apple releasing their iSlate, a small transportable mobile phone enhanced reader – and one might also guess (hope) further enhanced with the capabilities that Han earlier introduced, that is to say, touch screen interfacing.
Here’s one of the latest rumour milling-abouts from Wired: [btw, sorry, but the taped interview is in french - the article tho is in english]
