Treffer: Paper versus screen: evaluating different design metaphors for electronic document delivery systems

An early discussion topic in many design sessions for electronic document delivery systems is, How important is it to reproduce the page? How this question is answered strongly influences hardware and software requirements, initial and ongoing data conversion and maintenance costs, and ultimately user acceptance. Answering this question has always been strongly influenced by the costs of data conversion and storage, as well as a desire on the part of system designers to provide a page view that mimicked, as closely as possible, the appearance of the printed page. The latter was particularly true when users were familiar only with using the paper product. Until recently, therewas little question about transmitting full-page images over phone lines, due to bandwidth restrictions. With increasing availability of low cost systems for storing and retrieving page images, the inclination to focus on delivery of page-formatted information has continued. At the same time, the structure and content of documents ― as opposed to the page-format information by itself― is becoming more accessible to the system developer. This has, in turn, stimulated a desire on the part of some to design document-based delivery systems which do not rely solely on the page metaphor. This paper based on the author's involvement in the development or maintenance of several text and image-based document delivery systems, suggests a framework for assessing the appropriateness and potential user acceptance of different types of electronic document delivery systems. These range from simple image-based page turners to screen oriented systems which present document-base information in graphical or hypermedia form. The view is presented that a key element in assessing the appropriateness of different document delivery metaphors is the intended degree of interaction between the user and the information content provided by the system, in terms of both document navigation and the methods used for document and concept retrieval. Examples are drawn from experiences with electronic document delivery systems in aerospace, schloatly journal publishing, truck maintenance and and customer assistance.