eBook Features Survey
Results Now Available

The Open eBook Forum has completed and published the results of a comprehensive survey on the features people want in the design of an electronic book.

The survey represents feedback from a variety of people -- ranging from authors to publishers to consumers -- and provides a list of the top ten most "desirable" features which people selected from a list of 48 features. As well as the "top ten list", the ratings and rankings for all 48 features are presented in the report.

The report also summarizes key points gathered from the data as well as comments and suggestions offered by the people who completed the survey. These key points, which are described in the report, answer these questions:

1. Do people believe electronic books are only hardware devices? In other words, do people perceive an electronic book as computer hardware or content?

2. How important is it for people to personalize their reading experience? Do people want to change the "look and feel" of their electronic book to match their reading habits beyond just simply changing the font size?

3. How important is it for people to be able to read the same electronic book on multiple devices (such as dedicated reading devices, personal digital assistants, laptops, and workstations) as well as the ability to
share (donate or lend) an electronic book among other people and institutions, such as libraries?

4. Do people want to organize their electronic books into a bookshelf(s) and then be able to search every electronic book in the bookshelf?

The answers to these questions as well as survey results can be downloaded, in multiple formats for hardware and software reading systems, from the following page:

http://www.openebook.org/eBookSurvey/results.asp