Enriching printed book reading experience by providing additional digital content through AR technology

Abstract

This thesis investigates how to design a new reading experience using the smartphone application with AR technology. This approach combines traditional printed book reading with related digital media available on the web to improve the reading experience. That is, readers can access the latest ideas and information on the Internet where the authors and/or publishers can update the content accordingly. Through dynamic interactions with digital media, readers can have more engaging experiences. In order to demonstrate new possibilities using the proposed method, Art history and data visualization books, “The story of art (E.H.Gombrich, 2010)” and “Factfulness (Hans Rosling, 2017)”, are selected and seven interactive functions are applied. Then, applying the prototype, a user test with nine graduate students was conducted to validate the proposed method. The findings reflect a great potential that interactive experience using the method can improve both engagement and comprehension of the contents while critical usability issues remain. This thesis is concluded with a discussion on limitations and future work.