Who was that? Enriched eReading through in-book visualisation

Abstract

The shift to electronic books has opened a realm of possibilities for assisting users in reading books, but little of this potential has been realised. Today’s eReaders offer simple search features but rarely make any ongoing supportive data about a book’s content available. We investigated the use of visual aids for eBook reading and developed an eReader prototype. Our prototype provides a timeline of character appearances throughout a book, coupled with interactive identifications and lists of characters as they appear within the narrative. We present results of a user study in which we observe that contextually-relevant information can enhance a reader’s experience.