[IxDA Discuss] UI design for digital books with extensive footnotes

[Luke Ball]

(caveat: Looks like Jennifer beat me to it, but the email was done  
anyway)

I can only assume, historically, it's the form factor of the book. 
(1)  But even in a modern plain-text medium like an email, it's far  
easier to simply drop the notes at the end then do some sort of  
inline layout.(2) Plus, they wouldn't be called footnotes were it any  
other way ;-)

In an ideal world, you don't need to look anywhere other than where  
you're already looking. a sophisticated UI should allow this, IMHO.

Luke

(1). You can't do side-by-side notes in a book without one page or  
the other entirely dedicated to notes (or creating heinously narrow  
paragraphs). Some annotated Shakespeare I read in high school was  
like this. Then you have the challenge of vertically aligning the  
note with the primary text. This is no small design challenge,  
especially with pagination; the primary text flows on, undaunted, and  
the citation text has to "keep up". Better to flow the citation/note  
on the same page, and the primary text gets shortened proportionately

(2). see?


On Aug 2, 2006, at 10:38 AM, Dan Saffer wrote:

> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted  
> material.]
>
>
> On Aug 2, 2006, at 8:39 AM, Jack Moffett wrote:
>
>> If using two panes, they should be side-by-side, with the main text
>> on the left, and the notes on the right. This would be easier than
>> looking down, as you say.
>
> Is this true? Why then is the convention in print for footnotes to be
> at the bottom, and, in software, for the display pane to be below the
> summaries/listings? Is there a physical, cultural or cognitive
> rationale?
>
> Dan
>
>
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