Project Overview

Glow Reading is an activity designed for Amazon Glow, which is a kid-focused video calling device that allows children and adults to read and draw remotely. While children use the Glow device to make video calls, adults on the other end use the Glow mobile app to connect. 

This case study examines how the mobile reading experience was designed to work with the Glow device.

Challenge

Children interact with Glow using its 19-inch projected display, whereas adults use the Glow mobile app. This creates an asymmetry between the child and adult’s experience, and needs to be considered when designing for Glow.

Goals

1. Design an activity for Glow that allows children and remote adults to read together.

2. Optimize the mobile experience for smaller devices.

3. Demonstrate Glow’s mission to foster connection and presence between children and remote adults.

Research

My research included competitive analysis of existing reading apps to better understand the current UX landscape, as well as video calling apps such as FaceTime. I also reviewed academic literature on early childhood development to get a better grasp of the science. Lastly, I observed how parents and teachers read physical books with children to gain further insights.

Findings

• Dialogic reading, which involves the adult and child having a dialogue around the text they are reading, is an important part of reading with children.

• Users often have to zoom-in when reading children’s books on small screens.

• Reflowable books are easier to read than fixed format books on small screens.

• Most users prefer to hold their phone in portrait orientation on a video call. 

Fixed Format vS Reflowable Books

Most children’s e-books are presented in a fixed format, which means the text and illustrations maintain a specific layout. On the other hand, re-flowable e-books are flexible, and automatically adjust the text to fit the screen.

The biggest advantage with reflowable books is that text size can be dynamically adjusted, which is ideal for reading books on smaller screens.

Exploration

After several rounds of brainstorms and concept sketches, one idea that emerged was to extract fixed format content and present it vertically, like a reflowable book. This would allow the user to hold their phone in a vertical position while reading.

Most fixed format e-books have separate font layers, a valuable insight I gained from my research. This means that book text can be extracted and displayed in various ways, which is the core idea behind Teleprompter Mode.

Rotating the phone to portrait orientation activates Teleprompter mode. In this mode, the book text is presented in a reflowable format, with the full book spread always visible at the top. This allows text size to be adjusted to user preference, while maintaining the visual context of the book.

Wireframes

Adjusting Font Style

In Teleprompter mode, users can change the font size to make text easier to read. When font size is adjusted, the text automatically reformats to fit the screen, just like a reflowable book. This makes reading children’s books much easier on small screens.

Turning Page

When the user gets to the end of the page, swiping up will turn the page and load the next section. This is accompanied by a page turn animation, which also triggers a page turn for the child using the Glow device.

Before building a functional prototype, I first evolved the visual design to use real book content. By using accurate book content (e.g. images, fonts and copy) I was able to achieve a more authentic presentation, which helped get a clearer signal in user testing.

I used Figma to create a functional prototype that incorporated these visual elements. I used After Effects to build some of the more detailed animations, such as page turning, which added more delight to the prototype.

Synchronization Between Devices

Being able to see the same content is crucial for a shared reading experience between children and remote adults. When the adult turns the page in Teleprompter mode, it also turns the page for the child using the Glow device, and vice versa.

User Testing

To get signal on the Teleprompter concept, I partnered with the UX Research team to conduct user testing sessions. We tested 10 sets of grandparents between the ages of 55 to 69 and 5 to 8 respectively. The objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of Teleprompter mode against the standard pinch zoom for reading small text.

Learnings

Overall, the Teleprompter concept successfully improved the accessibility of reading children’s books on small screens. However, pointing and calling attention to both words and illustrations is crucial when reading with children. 

Key Takeaways

• Adjusting text size in Teleprompter mode made reading text easier for the adult.

• Holding the phone in portrait orientation allows for a centered view of the adults face for the child using the Glow device.

• Teleprompter mode performed less well for books with lot’s of images and less text.

• Not being able to see where the child was pointing in the book was a big pain point.

• Adults want an easier way for the child to “follow along” with them while they read.

The common theme from user testing was that users wanted to point to book content and highlight words. With this in mind, I evolved the design for landscape mode to include pointers.

Long pressing the screen triggers a pointer, which is available for both child and adult. If the child points out of frame while zoomed in, the adult can quick pan over to the child’s pointer, and then snap back to their previous position.

Outcome

• Glow Reading launched as one of the 3 pillars for the Glow product.

• Feedback from user testing lead to additional accessibility features for Glow Reading.

• Pointers became a foundational Glow feature, adopted by other activities.