OVELÊ Grupo Editorial (OVELÊ editorial group)
OVELÊ is a publisher of audiovisual e-books, with a free app providing a reading community.
How does it work?
The project is divided into two parts: the app and the audiovisual e-books. The literary works available in the platform are public domain pieces. The main points are animations, soundtrack and ambient sounds while reading. These features illustrate and hold the reader's attention in the story, filling some of the lack of frequent stimulus and inciting curiosity for the next chapter. At the end of each chapter you can rate it with “emojis” that express your feelings about the story and share your thoughts on the discussion forum without getting any spoilers. In addition, every week a report is provided with your statistics, showing which goals were achieved, number of pages read, the most “emoji” used, encouragement phrases and a metric of comparison with other weeks and even users. Also, we want to provide accessibility mechanisms, which include screen readers, audio description of images and audiobooks.
Why is it needed?
After many months of research, we realized that the imagetic society our generation finds itself in is affecting the way our public consume entertainment. These hyper-stimulating habits have made reading an exhausting practice, as it takes time and requires focus, what is difficult to maintain when you are used to the superfluous content offered by social media. However, you can see that most people understand the importance of books, both for gaining knowledge and for mental and cognitive health. In other words, they know they need culture, but culture needs to be accessible to them.
How does it improve life?
Since there is a huge gap in the number of readers in the national territory (Brazil), our project aims to expand the access of the lower classes to books and encourage the reading habit in people's daily lives. Our project’s name combines the features within it: listening (“O” from “Ouvir”, in portuguese), watching (“VE” from “Ver”) and reading (“LÊ” from “Ler”). This combination of words literally translates what our project is all about. Reading is very important in our lives because it is a great brain exercise, activating multiple brain areas in both hemispheres. The act of reading is beneficial for our mental health, helping us to relieve and reduce stress and anxiety, and can also help in the prevention of Alzheimer's disease in addition to having an important social role, helping us to develop empathy.