Aesop: Authoring Engaging Digital Storytelling Experiences (original) (raw)

Every object tells a story: Physical interfaces for digital storytelling

2000

We have designed a novel interface for interactive storytelling, where users manipulate physical objects to access various portions of a narrative. The story is designed so that the physical artefacts play meaningful parts in the narrative, thus blurring the line between story and interface. In informal tests and demonstrations users found the interaction easy to understand, thus indicating this could be a promising way to increase user involvement in interactive narrative.

Interactive storytelling: interacting with people, environment, and technology

International Journal of Arts and Technology, 2014

Stories are an important part of children's social and cognitive development and can be an integral part of their lives. In this paper, we share a short synopsis of Mobile Stories, one of the narrative systems we have developed with and for children. We also share lessons we have learned while designing, developing, and evaluating Mobile Stories. In designing and developing narrative systems for children, we advocate using iterative co-design (specifically cooperative inquiry). While designing a product, it is important to keep in mind key characteristics of interactive storytelling systems; such systems should encourage and enable creativity, interactivity with the environment via movement and mobility, and interactivity between users. When evaluating interactive storytelling systems, evaluators should consider the different story tasks of reading, creating, and sharing.

Tell Me That Bit Again... Bringing Interactivity to a Virtual Storyteller

2003

Stories and storytelling are a constant presence in our lives since very early childhood. Who does not remember a story narrated by a good storyteller? However, real human storytellers do not always tell the story the same way. They observe their ”audience” and adapt the way they are telling the story to better respond to their reactions. This paper focuses on how to bring interactivity to a virtual storyteller by allowing users to influence the story. The storyteller is a synthetic 3D granddad that uses voice, gestures and facial expressions to convey the story content to be told. The character’s behaviour and the way the story is narrated, is influenced by the user’s input. Such input is done by a tangible interface (a kind of mail box) where children put the cards they want in order to influence what will happen in the story being told. A preliminary usability test was made with sixteen children, with ages between nine and ten years old. The results showed that the way interactivity is introduced was quite successful.

Draw your own story: Paper and pencil interactive storytelling

Entertainment Computing, 2014

In this paper, we present a storytelling system able to dramatize interactive narratives in augmented reality over a conventional sheet of paper. The system allows users to freely interact with virtual characters by sketching objects on the paper. Users interacting with the system can indirectly affect the characters' decisions, even to the point of radically subverting the storyline.

TOK: developing a tangible platform for storytelling

2011

This paper describes a first study of a tangible interface, consisting of a platform and a set of picture cards that children can use to create stories. The handling of the picture cards has shown to be highly motivating and engaging, helping children to build a storyline creating logical relations among different characters and objects. The interface works like an experimental space where children can play with the language and simultaneously reflect over it, individually or in a collaborative process. We present the design of the first ...

Interactive Digital Narrative - What's the story?

For over 25 years, new and experimental forms of narrative have been evolving from the intersection of digital technologies and literary and artistic vision. From hypertext novels, to massive multi-player online role-playing games to immersive virtual reality installations, each instance involves storytelling machines – human or otherwise – that reveal as much about ourselves as the tales they tell. This collection of essays Interactive Digital Narrative: History, Theory and Practice, edited by Hartmut Koenitz et al., gathers a highly diverse range of activities and experiences in the field of interactive digital narrative (IDN) that describe its different facets and also reveal dramatic tensions within this research area....

TOK: a tangible interface for storytelling

2011

We present the design of the first prototype of TOK -a tangible interface for children to create their own stories. Based on data collected with two groups of five years old preschoolers we present our findings regarding the interaction design of the system. The picture cards have shown to generate ideas, acting as input for the creation of stories, promoting creativity while proposing a framework that supports and guides the construction of logical structures. This is a first step in an effort to build a toolkit of tangible interfaces allowing children and teachers to build their own digital enhanced learning activities.

New active tools for supporting narrative structures

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 2002

Constructing stories is a type of playing that involves mobilizing the storyteller's imagination and finding original ways to convey narrative intentions. When a child invents a story, there is a natural interaction with the local environment and the use of various means of expression. We adopted a user-centered approach to design POGO, a playful environment which utilizes the child's physical environment and sensory modalities. Pogo is a system of active tools that enable children to create stories by connecting physical and virtual environments. By providing children with the possibility of capturing and manipulating images and various media, and combining them in sequential form, Pogo triggered new strategies in the construction of narrative logic, time and space, in the construction of the episodes and in the visual narration.