Case Study: Kobo
The objective
A tailor-made solution for dictionary search.
The company and the product
Kobo Inc is a leading brand in the electronics space, producing award-winning eReaders and applications that bring the power of reading into their user’s world.
An eReader is a handheld electronic device on which digital versions of written materials can be read, such as books or newspapers. Kobo eReaders have a global user base, with a vast range of models, including the Kobo Elipsa, Kobo Forma, Kobo Libra H20, Kobo Clara HD, and Kobo Nia, each providing unique features ranging from mark up to waterproofing.
Find out more about Kobo products, powered by Oxford Languages data here.
The problem
eReaders users will occasionally come across words they don’t know, which would interrupt their reading experience. To find the meaning of a word, they would need to use a separate product, such as an online or printed dictionary.
The Solution
The Kobo team developed a look-up dictionary and translation tool within the eReader using our dictionary data.
They wanted to make definitions, example sentences, and translations immediately accessible, to create a seamless experience for their readers. They needed data to do this, and by partnering with us, we worked together to determine the best solution for their dictionary display needs. As a result, utilizing a range of our monolingual and bilingual datasets, across a wide range of languages, we developed a bespoke solution for Kobo’s built in dictionary feature, allowing their users to simply highlight unfamiliar words and access a definition within the device.
Kobo receive dedicated data structure support from us to assist with the integration stage, enabling smooth ingestion of new languages. With a variety of data formats available to us, we offered a uniform structure across all datasets and languages. This allowed for easy integration and enabled Kobo to offer a wide range of languages to their end users, including our Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Turkish, Italian, and English monolingual and bilingual lexical data.
With our data, Kobo is able to provide a seamless experience for their users, with confidence that our comprehensive coverage and regular updates allow their customers to access the most up-to-date dictionary content. Our longstanding partnership provides Kobo with the reputable data they need to keep their award-winning products up-to-date, and positively impacts their end user experience. We offer one point of contact, and one source, for all their dictionary data needs.
As a result of HumanWare’s collaboration with us, users of the Connect 12, MATT Connect magnifiers, and BrailleNote, now have access to user-friendly tools that support their lexical comprehension needs. HumanWare has been particularly impressed with the depth and quality of our dictionary definitions.
For more information about Kobo, powered by Oxford Languages data, click here.
Additional information
If you’d prefer to read this case study offline, you can download it as a PDF. Learn how Kobo utilized our dictionary display data to enhance their award-winning eReader, providing readers with seamless access to definitions and language support.
Find Kobo online
If you’d like to learn more about Kobo you can visit them here:
Images courtesy of Kobo