DAISY Reading Apps User Requirements

This document presents user stories highlighting the experiences and needs of individuals with various print disabilities in the context of digital reading. These stories provide insight into the challenges faced by users with visual, cognitive, physical, and other impairments that affect their ability to read printed or digital text.

Each user story illustrates real-world scenarios, emphasizing the accessibility features required to support inclusive digital reading experiences. By capturing these diverse perspectives, this document serves as a foundation for understanding user needs and informing the development of accessible digital reading solutions.

These user stories will be referenced in the accompanying User Requirements Document, ensuring that accessibility considerations are embedded in the design and implementation of digital reading technologies.

Louis is blind and uses his smartphone to read books via speech output and sometimes with a connected braille display. His first language is French, but he also reads in English and German.

As a student in middle school, he needs to read the materials provided to him by his teachers. His subjects cover French language and literature, history and geography, foreign languages, arts and crafts, musical education, civics, mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural sciences, technology, and PE.

For longer texts, Louis would like to use a human narrated form. Right now he doesn’t use human narrated audio a lot because he finds the switch between an audio player and a text file difficult, and prefers reading assignments with his braille display. It would be nice to have it all in one program, even more so if he could answer the assignments in-text in the same file, instead of having to switch to a different file or to notes/bookmarks in the margins.

When he's reading a textbook for the first time, Louis wants to have direct access to all images and image descriptions. But when preparing for a test, he would rather leave out certain side bars and image descriptions.

Sometimes, Louis’s school is late in providing the list of books he needs. This means his specialized library has difficulty getting the books ready for him in time. Louis would like to get the first chapters when they’re ready so he can use them in class, and getting the other chapters later. He does need to have his notes and answers synchronized to new book increments. (submitted by Kirsten)

Louis also enjoys reading fiction in his own time. He likes to browse the catalogue to find the latest titles from his favorite authors, and to discover new ones. (submitted by Richard)

Oxana (22) loves how her favourite reading apps have made books much more enjoyable for her, now the official diagnosis of dyslexia and dyspraxia allows her access to the specialist library.

She mostly reads on her tablet computer in the evenings at weekends, steadily working through the books she has downloaded from her specialist library. Oxana likes to read visually, through audio, and ideally the combination of both. She prefers a sans serif font set at a larger text size with a green background. For the more challenging titles she will set the margins to reduce the number of words on each line. (submitted by Richard)

Oxana will often read with eyes and ears. She'll listen to the book using text to speech whilst visually following along with the sentence highlighting. Whilst the voices offered through the app are high quality, her perfect experience is when the ebook is human narrated. Then she has the choice of listening with the narrator, or with the text to speech. (submitted by Richard)

Ruth (43) has low vision. She loves to read digital novels and would love to do that using an e-reader. However, the low contrast of the font and paper, as well as small navigation buttons and no Lithuanian TTS make it difficult for her to use it over long periods. Instead, she reads books using an app on her computer (or tablet sometimes), usually reading visually and occasionally switching to read aloud. When reading visually, she changes the font, increases its size and widens line spacing. She prefers a paginated layout, as it helps her focus on smaller chunks of text. For read aloud, she only switches it on for books narrated by human voices, as she finds synthetic voices difficult to understand. (submitted by Julija)

Alex (30) has dyslexia and enjoys reading action books. He reads e-books on his tablet. He usually finds and reads e-books on the app of the specialised library. If the book he wants to read is not there, he buys it and reads it on another reading app. In both cases, to make reading easier, he prefers using a black background with white text. He also benefits greatly from a clean view function that only displays the line he is currently reading and highlights it in yellow. For longer sentences or more complex words, he uses TTS to hear how the word should sound. (submitted by Julija)

Tom, a fifth grader, is diagnosed with a reading impairment. To overcome this and be able to read printed books and textbooks, he takes a photo of the text using Google Lens and uses text-to-speech to read the content aloud. He wishes there was a simpler way to access and read the school materials and other books. (submitted by Julija)

Oscar is 85 years old and blind in one eye and has 20% vision in the other eye. He experiences some tremors in his hands. He listens to audiobooks on CD with the DAISY player and also uses an online app to listen. He uses the library newsletter to discover new books and tries to borrow these himself. He has several family members he can contact for help if there is something he cannot do, but he prefers to solve things on his own. He also requires a portable solution, so he can read books while he is on a trip. (submitted by Yorick)

Helen is 76 and always has her DAISY player in her bedroom to listen to audio books before she goes to bed. Although Helen has close friends and a daughter who can help her, she prefers to try to solve problems herself first, as a sense of mastery is important to her. She orders audio books by calling the library. She chooses books from the braille newsletter she receives from the library. She has a need for tactile buttons that are easy to distinguish from each other and understand their function. (submitted by Yorick)

Emma is a 15-year-old girl who has been recognized as dyslexic since grade 4. She is the oldest in her family, with two younger brothers, and attends a regular school, currently in her third year of secondary education. Emma is very digitally skilled and popular at school, with many friends. Although she enjoys reading, she has limited time and currently only reads books required for school. She prefers streaming books but is constrained by limited 4G data, so she primarily uses an app and a DAISY player. Emma would appreciate a recommended book section, as she finds it challenging to search for books herself, and she prefers to stay in contact via her iPad and social media. (submitted by Irmgard)

Els is a 42-year-old woman who has been completely blind since the age of 22 due to glaucoma. She is married with three children and, although she is well educated, she has mostly been a stay-at-home mother. Els is very active and involved in her community, running a drop-in center, doing volunteer work, and enjoying hobbies like crocheting and knitting. She loves to read and spends much of her day listening to books while cooking, ironing, or cleaning. Most of her reading is done through an app, with occasional use of a DAISY player, and she also still enjoys reading in braille to experience the feel of a physical book. Braille has the advantage that she finds it easier to fully understand something in braille. Also, in braille she is quicker when she wants to go back and read a few words again. When Els goes to bed, she likes to switch to audio again, to fall asleep to the sound of a book. Els is comfortable using her Mac computer, which she utilizes for courses and prefers for communication, especially via email. (submitted by Irmgard)

Thea is a 70-year-old woman who is both visually impaired and dyslexic. She has been widowed for four years and lives alone, rarely going out or seeing friends. While not digitally skilled, she can manage basic tasks like using email on her computer. Thea is resourceful and has always found creative ways to cope with her reading difficulties. She enjoys reading a variety of books and currently orders new releases through a book list, though this causes her to miss out on many other great titles. Most of her reading is done through a Webbox, with occasional use of a DAISY player. She prefers to communicate via email, as she finds phone calls uncomfortable, but her limited computer skills make this a challenge. (submitted by Irmgard)

Stefan is 75 years old and was diagnosed 5 years ago with macular degeneration. He still enjoys traveling abroad with his wife. The ability to download audiobooks to his mobile app allows him to listen to his favorite audiobooks without access to the internet (to avoid roaming costs). It is crucial for him to use the app independently, which is possible thanks to its intuitive and simple user interface. He appreciates the large play/pause buttons and the option to choose from different UI themes. Having a dark mode is also important to him. He valued a tutorial recorded in audio files which helped him to learn the most important functions of his app. (submitted by Lukasz)

Sam finds it difficult to speak in a way that others can understand; along with his physical challenges, in the past he struggled to enjoy one of his favourite pastimes – reading crime novels. Sam now uses a voice recognition technology which understands how Sam speaks and translates his speech in such a way that he can control reading apps by voice – now, he can read what he wants, when he wants, with full control. (submitted by Steve)

Emily has challenges with regular movement and manipulation. But two technologies together have revolutionised her ability to interact with books reading apps. She can manipulate her technology using EyeGaze, a means of controlling software through visually focusing and selecting options; and she uses an element of software that takes account of her tremors – when she touches the screen, her ability to control things is not affected since the system knows she needs more time to position her fingers in the right place. (submitted by Steve)

Alice is 50 years old and works full-time. When she is home, she loves to listen to audio books on her smart speakers she has throughout her house.

Alice connects to her library on her smart speaker and uses the search function to find a book. When she starts reading, she uses voice commands to jump to the beginning of the book. She starts listening and goes about her work at home.

After she has listened for a half hour, she adjusts the speed to her preference. She frequently pauses the recording when interrupted. She restarts from where she left off. When she is finished, she will often ask the smart speaker to play her music. When she starts reading the next day, she expects it to resume from where she left off reading and at the same speech rate. (submitted by George)

Simona is a 40 years old blind professional with eclectic tastes, including books with rich information such as bibliography and notes. She wants an easy way to access these parts as she reads the main text continuously, or to choose to skip them. Simona also reads newspapers and magazines. She likes the image descriptions because they give her a better overall idea of the articles. But she would also like to be able to easily jump out of descriptions when she finds them not relevant for her. Simona is multitasking and enjoys using voice control on her smart phone to do time jumps or control speed like in other mainstream audiobook players such as Audible. (submitted by Ioana)

Liviu is 70 years old and adapting to recent vision and cognition loss. He is intimidated by new technology so prefers a simple player that suggests the next book to read from his bookshelf. Liviu likes to ask it by voice to play or pause without many other requirements other than remembering where he left off. (submitted by Ioana)

Maria (23) is DeafBlind and pursuing a career in massage therapy. She communicates using tactile ASL and reads using a braille display and screen reader technology. Maria enjoys using digital tools for learning, but she struggles with click-by-click visual instructions, which are common in online learning platforms. She finds these inaccessible with her screen reader and prefers screen reader-specific documentation that clearly explains interface navigation.

Maria is highly independent and skilled with assistive technology but often encounters poorly structured digital content that does not account for her navigation needs. She prefers applications that offer text descriptions of interactive elements, consistent keyboard navigation, and braille-friendly formatting. She also enjoys listening to human-narrated books in her free time, using a screen reader to browse and manage her library. (submitted by Sean)

Javier (19) has ADHD and enjoys reading books about history and science fiction. He struggles with maintaining focus and often loses his place while reading. To help with this, he prefers customizable reading modes that allow him to control font size, line spacing, and background color. He also benefits from text-to-speech (TTS) with adjustable pacing, which helps him stay engaged with the text.

Javier often finds that digital books lack clear structure, making it difficult to follow long passages. He prefers books with built-in summaries, keyword highlighting, and easy navigation to key sections. While he is comfortable using reading apps, he finds it frustrating when interfaces are cluttered or lack focus modes that remove distractions. He would love a reading app that offers reading timers, chapter previews, and personalized book recommendations to help him manage his reading habits. (submitted by Sean)