Towards an engaging e-reading experience

Abstract

Electronic books are gaining in popularity, but their potential is not fully exploited yet. This is especially true for children eBooks. HEBE (Highly Engaging eBook Experiences) project, aims to actively involve children in the design of a new concept of electronic book that enables the reader to "get lost" in it, namely to enable a new, highly engaging, reading experience. From literature review emerged that no (or very few) research has been held about immersive reading in a digital environment, while there are many studies about user engagement with technology. In this paper we propose a theoretical framework, derived from Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory, to be used for assessing the level of engagement of digital reading experiences. Early outcomes we obtained through preliminary qualitative inquiry and a research plan describing future directions of the work are then presented.