Designing storytelling technologies to encouraging collaboration between young children

TLDR

Early versions of KidPad and Klump used in schools in Sweden and the UK motivated the idea of encouraging collaborative storytelling. The study iteratively designs two collaborative storytelling technologies, KidPad and Klump, to subtly encourage children to discover the benefits of working together. The authors compare collaborative encouragement with other synchronization approaches, iteratively revising the interfaces based on child feedback. Revisions to the technologies incorporated child design suggestions and enhanced collaborative engagement.

Abstract

We describe the iterative design of two collaborative storytelling technologies for young children, KidPad and the Klump. We focus on the idea of designing interfaces to subtly encourage collaboration so that children are invited to discover the added benefits of working together. This idea has been motivated by our experiences of using early versions of our technologies in schools in Sweden and the UK. We compare the approach of encouraging collaboration with other approaches to synchronizing shared interfaces. We describe how we have revised the technologies to encourage collaboration and to reflect design suggestions made by the children themselves.