Reading text on a smart phone: Scrolling vs. paging: Toward designing effective electronic manuals

This study investigates the influence of reading-manipulation on small touch devices such as smart phones and, more specifically, how scrolling and paging actions affect a user´s comprehension of texts and the operating performance of the interface. Two different types of texts were distinguished using (a) a recall task and (b) an operation task. In the recall task, the user´s comprehension levels of narrative texts were measured in both the scrolling and paging conditions. Also, the operation time of the virtual interface and number of errors during the reading of a procedural text were examined in the operation task. The results indicated that the comprehension level of narrative texts was slightly better in paging and that operation time and number of errors makes no difference in the reading of procedural texts in both conditions. Narrative texts could be better understood in paging actions on small touch devices and both scrolling and paging are suitable for procedural texts, and it is also true that scrolling contributes to reading procedural texts for users who have long experience with using devices such as smart phones.