User behavior during the book selection process

Abstract

We study user behavior during the stage of the book selection process when people study the content of a book to decide whether it will be useful for their intended purpose. 24 undergraduates participated in a balanced study in which they were given a topic-book pair and asked to decide whether the book was useful for the topic; half of the book-topic pairs were presented to participants in print and half electronically. We report on the impact of the medium on the book selection process and the outcome. This research contributes to our understanding of factors that influence the book selection process and has implications for the design of electronic books.