Reading Ahead: Considering The Book’s Future in the iPod Era

Steve Portigal and Dan Soltzberg will share findings from the Reading Ahead project, an exploration the evolution of reading and books from a consumer perspective – what it means to be a reader, how artifacts from traditional books to devices like Amazon’s Kindle affect the experience, and what the future might hold for readers, product developers, and others.

Portigal Consulting is a bite-sized firm that bring together user research, design and business strategy to help innovative companies discover and act on new insights about themselves and their customers. We’ve conducted in-depth contextual research with telecommuters, musicians, bankers, new mothers, students, and dozens of others. We’ve worked with companies like Belkin, Bosch, Chevron, France Telecom-Orange, Hewlett-Packard, Nestle, Plantronics, and Sony to guide the development of new products and services.