Effective use of Augmented Reality to Support Reading for People with Dyslexia

Abstract

As technology keeps getting developed it has the possibility to become more and more useful, and one such technology is augmented reality. This thesis examines the possibility of using augmented reality to assist dyslexic people in reading written content. Dyslexia is the most common learning disorder and affects approximately 10% of the world's population. People with dyslexia often have troubles with reading which can affect their academic performance as well as their daily lives. Being able to assist dyslexic people can in turn help a lot of people worldwide. Using known design principles such as the human-centered design process, this research explored design choices to develop an augmented reality application that can assist people with dyslexia. The human-centered design process incorporates the target group into the design process which makes it possible to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the application, which in turn can make the app more satisfactory to use. The thesis also goes into detail on how the app was designed using the human-centered design process as well as the methods used to develop the augmented reality app for a mobile phone. This study investigated if the human-centered design process could be used to design and develop an effective augmented reality app. It takes use of user testing with the target group and uses qualitative interviews and questionnaires to measure how the participants experience using the app and if they enjoyed using the app or not. The results of the user testing showed that the participants had an overall positive attitude towards using an augmented reality app to assist in reading.