Andrew Dillon's Designing Usable Electronic Text

I wanted to run the book I have selected for my presentation next Wednesday by everyone.

As I mentioned during the first week, I was thinking of doing something from the IT perspective as opposed to the textual studies perspective. In searching for a book, I found this one, Designing Usable Electronic Text by Andrew Dillon. While not actually from the IT perspective, it is certainly from a different one.

So I'd appreciate any feedback, particularly if you don't think this book would be interesting for the class.

Andrew Dillon is currently the dean of the school of information at the University of Texas. Prior to that he was a professor of information science at the University of Indiana. Perhaps more interestingly, before that he was a member of the
HUSAT research institute, now a part of the Ergonomics & Safety Research Institute. The focus of his study in the area of electronic text seems to be on how the presentation of electronic text effects human beings both physically and psychologically.

The book is now in its second edition, first published in 1994 and revised in 2003 to deal with increased proliferation of online texts. Dillon states the purpose of the book as follows:

The major aim of the present work is to examine and subsequently to describe the reading process from a perspective that sheds light on the potential for information technology to support that process.

From my initial browsing, the book seems to be drawing on psychological theories of reading, physical effects of computers, and electronic text design, though Dillon claims its subject matter is none of these.

On an interesting side note, I've decided to read electronic version of this book, available from Mobipocket.com. I'll probably post some observations about this electronic format later. I should mention that one feature is to tell you how long it should take you to read the book. I wonder how they calculate that. Anyway, the computer says it will take me 23 hours, so I better get cracking.