Visually-Impaired People Studying via eBook: Investigating Current Use and Potential for Improvement

Everyday activities and tasks should be easy to perform for everyone, especially in an educational context, in order to foster inclusivity and assure equal opportunities for all. In this paper, we investigate strategies and issues experienced by visually impaired people when studying via eBook. An online survey was designed to investigate preferences regarding the different formats and understand what types of actions are possible and desirable when using eBooks in an educational context. We collected the views and experiences of 75 visually-impaired people, which revealed the need to develop tools that can provide both full accessibility and high usability when reading for study. Visually impaired people would like to rely on the same widely-used strategies that sighted people use when studying a text. In addition, 92% of the visually-impaired people participating in the online survey declared they were interested in a (new) reading app. The results could orient the design of new digital reading tools and functionalities that can improve interaction.