Multisensorial Books: Improving Readers' Quality of Experience

Electronic books (e-books) are an alternative to traditional books and have some advantages over it. For example, they present dictionary function, allow searching for words in texts, are ecologically correct, among others. Moreover, research indicates e-books can improve the learning process. The learning process is also improved with the use of enhanced e-books, which includes multimedia resources (e.g., images, videos, sounds) to stimulate adapted and interactive learning. Similarly, multisensorial media (MulSeMedia) research presents the possibility of expanding the senses with additional media components, like haptic or gustatory devices, which can enhance the learner quality of experience. In this scenario, this work proposes a new model to combine enhanced e-books and MulSeMedia to improve the learning process. This model is named Multisensorial Electronic Books, or Multisensorial Books, for short. A prototype with auditory, haptic and olfactory effects is also created. This initial prototype showed promising results, indicating the present study may open avenues for further researches.