There's been much blogging and tweeting over the last day or so about a recent "study" conducted by the Nielsen Norman Group. This study supposedly demonstrates, among other things, that eBooks take longer to read than traditional books. Now, I don't actually believe that the core headline question (note: the study also embraces several other issues of usability and readability across devices) is terribly important, but it still needs to be said that the problems with this research are two.
First, the study embraces only 24 users, which is nowhere near being statistically significant, even though TG Daily optimistically calls it "just about statistically significant," whatever that means.
Also, no data is given on how the 24 users were chosen or who they were from a demographic point of view. Young? Old? People completely new to eBooks, or folks experienced with the technology? College educated? Not? People carefully chosen to be representative of the broad market across devices?
Fact is, I don't see how that latter can be achieved with a study universe so small as 24. In fact, as someone with thirty years experience in both qualitative and quantitative market research, I know it can not be achieved with so small a universe of 24. Such details need to be attended to in any serious research.
Thus, at the end of the day what we have here is an unreliable answer to an irrelevant question, plus (more dangerously) unreliable answers to several other more cogent questions concerning device ergonomics. Reader beware.
