The Influence of Picture Book Interaction Design on Preschool Children’s Reading Experience

Abstract

Compared by adults, children rely more on the experience obtained through the materiality of picture books to get information or just have entertainment. Therefore, the design of children’s picture books is more interactive than general books. This study explored the effects of interaction form and gender on children’s reading preference, interests, subjective ratings and affective experience. Extremely controlled experiment method was used in this study, 40 six-year old children were invited to attend the experiment to read books with different interaction forms. 6 most commonly used interaction forms in the design of children’s picture books were used as the experimental control variables. These 6 interaction forms come from the two categories of “behavior-based interaction forms” and “sensory experience-based interaction forms”. The improved “8 circular emotion cards” are used as experimental scales. Children’s reading interest is judged by reading time. A two-way analysis of variance for reading time showed that the interaction form has a significant effect on reading time. A statistical analysis of the rating found that the interaction form had a significant impact on children’s subjective evaluation. Gender difference in the interests of interaction forms is not significant. This research gives some suggestion for children’s picture book design: 1. design suitable interaction form to stimulate children’s positive emotions in reading; 2. make good use of the interaction form based on sensory experience; 3. the interaction form should match the children’s cognitive characteristic.