Designing and Evaluating of an iPad-based Reading Mode for Enhancing the Efficiency of Non-native Immersive Reading

With the development of the Internet and electronic devices, it has become easier for us to acquire knowledge, but the concentration of reading has decreased. Nowadays, many tasks must rely on various electronic devices, and within them there is still a large demand for immersive reading in front of electronic screens. However, due to the particularity of electronic devices, the concentration of text reading is not high enough, resulting in low reading efficiency, especially for non-native language reading. Many studies have focused on the effects of static elements (such as labeling, background color, etc.) on reading efficiency and fatigue, however, few studies on the effect of dynamic text display form on reading concentration.Considering that iPad is often selected as the immersive reading tool, due to its function of annotating with pencils, this study aims to propose an iPad-based dynamic reading mode to help users with immersive reading demands read more effectively with electronic devices. In order to clarify the direction of design, we conducted a pre-experiment on the several existing reading modes designed for reading concentration available through eye-tracking evaluation and user interviews. Three participants wore eye trackers to experience several reading modes and put forward their design suggestions. Based on the eye-tracking data and interview results, an iPad-based reading mode of paragraph highlight was proposed based on the improvement of the existing reading mode. This reading mode can dynamically highlight the paragraphs of the article following the drag of the page, helping users to concentrate on the paragraphs they want to read intensively, without being interfered by other elements on the page.In order to evaluate the function of this reading mode, a multi-dimension verification experiment was conducted on the reading efficiency and concentration of non-native language reading with this reading mode and its user preference. The experiment was conducted by reading articles in different reading modes and answering questions about articles, and filling out subjective evaluation scales. A total of 24 university students were invited, all of whom are non-native speakers of English, and their English level is comparable. The English articles used were all TOEFL reading articles of the same difficulty, in order to balance the difficulty of the questions after the articles. Each participant experienced three reading modes in the experiment, which are reading modes of line highlight, paragraph highlight, and normal (no highlight). The order of the three modes and the combination of articles have been balanced. After each article, there were three questions about the articles and several subjective evaluation scales about concentration, preference, and difficulty.The results show that the reading mode of paragraph highlight received the highest correct rate of question-answer and reading concentration of subjective evaluation significantly. Moreover, its user preference is also significantly higher than the other two reading modes. In conclusion, it shows that the reading mode of paragraph highlight proposed in this research may improve the efficiency and concentration of non-native language reading on the iPad. In the future, relevant web reading plug-ins or reading apps in the iPad based on this reading mode can be developed, which may provide more possibilities for users who use iPad for immersive reading.