Usability evaluation of E-books

The objective of this study is to evaluate the usability of electronic books (E-books). An experiment was designed to compare the differences between reading an E-book and a conventional book (C-book) with objective measures. Twenty junior college students, ages sixteen to eighteen, participated in the study. Response measures included reading performance and critical flicker fusion (CFF). The results indicate that reading an E-book causes significantly higher eye fatigue than reading a C-book. Reading a C-book generated a higher level of reading performance than reading an E-book. In addition, females demonstrated better reading performance than males in reading either book.