“A Helping Hand”: Design and Evaluation of a Reading Assistant Application for Children with Dyslexia

Abstract

We designed and evaluated Augmenta11y, a cross-platform application that aims to provide ubiquitous reading and learning companionship to children with dyslexia. We developed the application following the Reflective Agile Iterative Design (RAID) framework, a participatory approach involving dyslexic individuals and special educators to provide feedback throughout the prototyping processes. We then conducted a user study with ten children with dyslexia between 10-14 years of age. We employed the think-aloud, post-usability session interview, and questionnaire methods to evaluate the tool's usability and usefulness. Our study revealed the Augmenta11y application's effectiveness in assisting children with dyslexia by providing affordable and accessible reading practices. We offer comprehensive suggestions and guidelines for designing future assisted reading applications. We foresee the opportunity for Augmenta11y to be an accessible, low-cost assistive reading solution for dyslexic children with little to no access to educational specialists or after-school practices/programs. The Augmenta11y application is available on iOS and Android.