User preferences towards select attributes of digital reading: An exploratory study post pandemic

ABSTRACT

The pandemic called COVID 19 has altered the ways in which people think, act, and believe and what not. Though morbidity and mortality are the biggest causes for concern, one cannot ignore the effect such a pandemic has over the other aspects of life. One such aspect is reading. While digital reading keeps on gaining further significance due to the pandemic, it becomes necessary to investigate the various facets of the same. Hence the study was conducted with the aim of examining the user preference towards select attributes of reading in the digital format. The present study is a descriptive research using primary data collected through questionnaire. The sample size was 100. It was found through Garrett ranking analysis that the most and least preferred format was 'pdf' and 'azw' respectively. The same for genre was fiction and poetry, whereas for device it was laptop and tablet. Chi-square tests were conducted for testing hypothesis. It was found through analysis that age and occupation had significant association with format and genre respectively. This finding presents a new perspective on digital reading user preferences over the previous studies for the fact that individual groups were focussed here. The magnitude of differences identified through data analysis shows that it is utterly necessary to regard each characteristic with special focus to maximise on the efficiency front from the view point of service provider as well as user. The limitation of the present study is the non-representative nature of the sample. © 2022 Universidad Tecnica de Manabi. All rights reserved.