This paper discusses our work conducting reader studies with prototypical reading interfaces designed in the context of funded Digital Humanities (DH) research projects. We discuss our conceptual and methodological approaches and contemplate which methods have been most productive in advancing our understandings of reading practices and interfaces. To situate this discussion, we first contemplate ways in which reading and new reading interfaces have been conceptualized by audiences within and beyond academia through the period of the emergence of digital environments for reading, and consider the merits of nuanced approaches that acknowledge the diversity of readers and reading practices.
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