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A multi-sensory interactive reading experience for visually impaired children; a user evaluation

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Abstract

The children’s experience of reading is enhanced by visual displays, and through picture book experiences, young children expose themselves to develop socially, personally, intellectually, and culturally. While a sighted person’s mental imagining is constructed mostly through visual experiences, a visually impaired person’s mental images are a product of haptic, taste, smell, and sounds. In this paper, we are introducing a picture book with multi-sensory interactions for the visually impaired children. The key novelty in our concept is the integration of multi-sensory interactions (touch, sound, and smell) to create a new reading experience for visually impaired. Also, this concept is highlighting the lack of appropriately designed sensory reading experiences for visually impaired children. We have conducted a user study with 10 educators, and 25 children from a special school for visually impaired in Malaysia, and our evaluation revealed that this book is engaging and a novel experience of multi-sensory interactions to both children and educators.

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Acknowledgments

Our deep gratitude to the headmaster, educators, and students at the Princess Elizabeth School for Blind for their invaluable support. We are thankful to the Ministry of Education of Malaysia. Authors would also like to thank Hiroki Nishino, Stefania Sini, Rasyidah Abd Rani, and Nurfiqah Johari for their invaluable contributions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Imagineering Institute, Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia

    Chamari Edirisinghe, Norhidayati Podari & Adrian David Cheok

  2. City, University of London, London, UK

    Chamari Edirisinghe, Norhidayati Podari & Adrian David Cheok

Authors
  1. Chamari Edirisinghe
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  2. Norhidayati Podari
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  3. Adrian David Cheok
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Correspondence to Chamari Edirisinghe.

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Edirisinghe, C., Podari, N. & Cheok, A.D. A multi-sensory interactive reading experience for visually impaired children; a user evaluation. Pers Ubiquit Comput 26, 807–819 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-018-1127-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-018-1127-4

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