Overcoming a five-century design deadlock to save the reading experience
Perhaps we don’t need more willpower to read more books. By exploring the history and context of book design, we can actually decode the path to enhance the human reading experience.
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Books are responsible for a massive part of human development and an active determinant in human history.
By documenting human knowledge across the most diverse fields, books have been a technology that, for centuries, has shaped minds and civilizations through a silent conversation across time and space, becoming a pivotal human event in cognition and communication.
The 550-Year-Old Blueprint
Books – the paper-printed, page-bounded objects that demand both human hands to hold and are preferably read in a sitting position – started to be manufactured about 550 years ago.
Its design was an engineering revolution in its time, featuring a movable-type system and a press that enabled the mass production of printed goods. Compared to scrolls, books were way better (they were more portable and durable) thanks to their bound pages, which allowed non-linear access via pagination.
Pagination, in turn, allowed books to display their references and sources at their ends, creating an intricate system of small symbols, numbers, and letters for the reader to navigate.
Despite its design choices being pragmatic solutions to the constraints of technology and materials at the time, regarding their purposes,
Books were initially developed with the (almost exclusive) objective of educating human males, targeting their behaviour, concerns, minds, and bodies
Because the very experience of reading a book was a luxury that very few in human societies worldwide could afford, books were assigned, since their birth, with a status of charm, wisdom, and exclusivity – they rapidly became symbols of wealth, knowledge, learning, and intellect.
Probably because of this initial association with superiority and wisdom, the book as an object—considering both its design and content—has remained largely unquestioned and unchallenged since its initial launch.
The Contemporary Ergonomic Shift
However, the fact that more humans (like females) have been granted the privilege of reading and learning from books, especially over the past 100 years, combined with digital devices that have revolutionized access to knowledge over the past 20 years, makes now the perfect time to rethink the book design so it can suit the minds, bodies, and social concerns of the contemporary human.
Considering that reading experiences are intended to reach all humans, printed publications in general should be lightweight and easy to hold with one hand (like digital devices), with a single-page flip. This format allows immersive reading in any position (lying down, sitting, standing) without any physical discomfort.
The Spatial Landscape of the Page
Today, it is known that while reading a book, humans absorb not only the meaning of the words but also their spatial distribution – a form of spatial memory. This means humans are involuntarily recording the position of the text on a page – whether it is on the right or left side of the book, or at the top, middle, or bottom of the page.
To address and enhance this human skill, the single-page flip could use a page layout that displays elements for navigation, such as titles, chapters, subtitles, page numbers, and so forth, as well as keywords related to the text, which make use of and reinforce the human spatial memory.
Furthermore, books today still adopt the confusing and uncomfortable way of displaying references and sources established a long time ago, forcing the reader to navigate a labyrinth of small fonts to access (often trivial) information.
This old system still treats supplementary information as an optional appendage rather than an integral part of the intellectual journey
This way of displaying references and sources is merely an outdated convention, not a scientific method.
Instead, references and sources should be a valuable asset, displayed comfortably on the same page as the content they relate to, making the reading experience easy and fluid.
Redesigning the Experience
Because reading is (still) one of the most efficient ways humans can learn, reading devices must adapt their purposes and fulfill their functions.
Perhaps what is needed for humans to read more is not willpower, but simple design adaptation, both in their physical design as objects and in the display of their content.
Reading is not just an act of willpower; it is an experience shaped by design
Quietly decoding written words and being taken by its loud silence is one of the most transformative and fulfilling human experiences. And it can definitely be an even more efficient, comfortable, and pleasant one.