=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2091/paper6
|storemode=property
|title=Swiping in the Wild: An Evaluation in the Wild of a StorytellingApp for Children
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2091/paper6.pdf
|volume=Vol-2091
|authors=Giovanni Forlastro,Cristina Gena,Claudio Mattutino,Elena Quiri,Rita Auriemma,Giuliano De Felice,Vito Santacesaria
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/avi/ForlastroGMQAFS18
}}
==Swiping in the Wild: An Evaluation in the Wild of a StorytellingApp for Children==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2091/paper6.pdf
Swiping in the Wild: An Evaluation in the Wild of a Storytelling
App for Children
Giovanni Forlastro Cristina Gena Claudio Mattutino
Department of Computer Science, Department of Computer Science, Department of Computer Science,
University of Turin University of Turin University of Turin
Torino, Italy Torino, Italy Torino, Italy
gianni.forlastro@gmail.com cristina.gena@unito.it claudio.mattutino@unito.it
Elena Quiri Rita Auriemma Giuliano De Felice
Archaeologist, independent Department of Cultural Heritage, Department of Humanities. Literature,
researcher University of Salento Cultural Heritage, Educ. Sciences,
Torino, Italy Lecce, Italy University of Foggia, Italy
elesquer@gmail.com rita.auriemma@unisalento.it Foggia, Italy
giuliano.defelice@unifg.it
Vito Santacesaria
Swipe Story srl
Bari, Italy
santacesaria@ai2.it
ABSTRACT 1 INTRODUCTION
In this paper we report the preliminary results of an evaluation Since always, telling stories is a warm and friendly habit, but
in the wild of a storytelling app, the Lions of Time, presenting an also a powerful tool to communicate, inform and teach. It’s the
archeological story, based on the swipe story approach. A swipe easiest and the most immediate way to transfer knowledge [12].
story is a digital story that, with a simple and immediate gesture
According to story theorists like Bruner [3], stories provide a
(namely the swipe) and a language based on drawings, images,
framework for making sense of events and their meaning [8]. For
words, games, sounds, movies and emotions, is able to start the
Paolini and Di Blas [9], digital storytelling is emerging as the most
young user to a new path of knowledge. We performed an evalua-
relevant way to deliver content in the digital age. They define a
tion in the wild the day the swipe story was launched at the 2017
digital story as a combination of visual communication (slideshows,
Turin International Book Fair. Preliminary results are encouraging,
videos or animations) with audio. They claim that today digital
especially regarding the children engagement in the fruition of the
stories are one of the best way for engaging users across several
story and its related games.
devices: from tablets to desktops, from smartphones to even phones,
for audio only. Different narratives styles can be used and different
CCS CONCEPTS situations can be envisioned, including immersive storytelling or
• Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in HCI; augmented-reality storytelling.
• Applied computing → Arts and humanities; According to Springer et al. [11] people process and retain in-
formation in narrative structures and stories are fundamental for
KEYWORDS the creation of meaning. For Springer et al. [11], the pedagogical
dimensions of storytelling could be summarized as follows: hu-
Storytelling, swipe story, child-computer interaction
manistic, cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural, multisensory, multimodal,
constructivist, learning directed.
ACM Reference Format:
The connections between digital storytelling and education have
Giovanni Forlastro, Cristina Gena, Claudio Mattutino, Elena Quiri, Rita
Auriemma, Giuliano De Felice, and Vito Santacesaria. 2018. Swiping in
been also highlighted by Tyner [13]. According to Tyner, digital
the Wild: An Evaluation in the Wild of a Storytelling App for Children. storytelling offers the advantages of an experiential approach to
In Proceedings of 2nd Workshop on Advanced Visual Interfaces for Cultural learning while combining oral and alphabetic literacies with those
Heritage (AVI-CH 2018). Vol. 2091. CEUR-WS.org, Article 6. http://ceur- intrinsic to the new multimedia.
ws.org/Vol-2091/paper6.pdf, 4 pages. In cultural heritage access, storytelling has been applied to virtual
tours in exhibitions [6], museums [11] and historical locations [4, 7],
and also in the educational archeology field. Garzotto and Paolini
[5] carried out a project with pupils combining several plugged and
AVI-CH 2018, May 29, 2018, Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy unplugged activities whose result was an interactive multimedia
© 2018 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
1
AVI-CH 2018, May 29, 2018, Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy G. Forlastro et al.
narrative providing multiple reading paths and delivered as Web
Site, podcast and CD-ROM.
On the side of pedagogical game-play, Ardito et al. [1] proposed
games to support young students learning history at an archaeo-
logical site by making use of advantages provided by multimedia
technology. They implemented two games on a large multi-touch
screen, to support young students learning about archaeological
parks during school visits. Students were encouraged to collaborate
to solve the proposed challenges, but they can also play against
each other.
In this paper we report the preliminary results of an evaluation
in the wild of a storytelling app (developed by three of the authors
of the current paper) presenting an archeological story, based on the
swipe story approach. We performed an evaluation in the wild the Figure 1: Example of points of interests in the Lions of Time.
day the swipe story The Lions of Time was firstly presented to the
public, during the 2017 Turin International Book Fair. Preliminary
• A level of narrative that allows the development of the emo-
results are encouraging especially regarding the children involve-
tional dimension, involving the user (by means of post-it
ment in the fruition of the story and its related games. This paper is
and comics);
organized as follows: Section 2 presents the swipe story approach,
• A level of deepening able to propose scientific contents of
Section 3 introduce the app The Lions of Time and presents the
greater detail and articulation (cards, images, films), devel-
evaluation in the wild, and Section 4 concludes the paper.
oping the informative and playful dimension.
The types of points of interest (see Figure 1) are continuously
2 BACKGROUND improved with the activation of new user experiences. Currently
A swipe story is a digital story that, with a simple and immediate in these points of interest are available:
gesture (namely the swipe) and a immediate language based on • In-depth information (multiple sheets can be browsed on the
drawings, images, words, games, sounds, movies and emotions, is two dimensions of a matrix with text, images and audio);
able to start the young user to a new path of living and stimulating • Curiosity (two-sided sheet, question/answer type, sugges-
knowledge. It enables an innovative storytelling able to: tion/solution, etc.);
• Animated movies and clips;
• Welcome and initiate the user to a new path of knowledge, • Games of association and correspondence.
such as visiting a museum;
• Make the path of knowledge alive and stimulating, making
the user interact with the elements that surround her and
3 EXPERIMENTING IN THE WILD
increasing her emotional involvement; 3.1 The story under evaluation
• Enhance the user experience favoring the consolidation of "I Leoni del Tempo - Archeostorie del Friuli Venezia Giulia - The Lions
the knowledge acquired through in-depth studies, educa- of Time - Archeo-stories of Friuli Venezia Giulia1 " is a trans-media
tional activities and games. editorial project promoted by ERPAC (Regional Institution for the
Cultural Heritage of the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giu-
Realizing a swipe story means constructing a main narrative
lia, Cataloging, Training and Research Service)2 . The swipe story is
around a plot and developing it through a succession of events.
realized throughout a tablet and smartphone app, freely available
Then the story develops with a series of scenes (frames) that make
in Google Play and App store markets. This swipe story supports
up a sort of tape. The user can move from one scene to another
an illustrated novel [2], and digital storytelling has been applied
with the simple gesture of "swipe", which can trigger:
with the aim to bring the young audiences closer to the knowledge
• Transitions over time (e.g. seasons or eras that follow each of the cultural heritage of Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Italian region
other on the same place); situated further to the North East. To make the regional patrimony
• Transitions of space, with the crossing of places in spatial known to young generations, a series of illustrated, animated and
continuity. interactive stories have been created, with which to follow the
adventures of the Lions of Time (see Figures 1 and 2).
To enrich the emotional dimension, transitions are characterized The story takes the user to discover the archaeological sites of
by a parallax effect (3D-simulated) in which the different levels of Friuli Venezia Giulia, where the present is intertwined with the past,
the design are made to move at different speeds and give depth to reality with imagination. Swipe after swipe, the user is walking
the scene. in space-time in the company of the three characters (Eleonora,
The creation of the story is based on visual sketches (the scenes Leonardo, and Ruggero) between reconstructions of places, cities
are not 3D reconstruction but real drawings), which go forward as (Pradis and Aquileia) and ancient monuments, on the light wings
tapes, and after that dialogues and audio come up. Digital story- 1 http://www.swipe-story.com/app/ileonideltempo
telling is spread over several levels: 2 http://www.ipac.regione.fvg.it/
2
Swiping in the wild AVI-CH 2018, May 29, 2018, Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy
of fantasy. The version of the swipe story under evaluation offers
the user two stories, with illustrations, audio, comics and games,
dedicated to Pradis and Aquileia. But in the future versions, the
three characters will be in Cividale, Trieste, Udine, Zuglio and in
other places in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, which very rich in
history, as all the Italian regions are.
3.2 The evaluation
During the 2017 Turin International Book Fair 3 , Le Muse Archaeo-
logical Association 4 organized a public event at the Fruili Venezia
Giulia stand, for presenting to the public the swipe story "The Lions
of Time".
For collecting an initial and spontaneous feedback from real
Figure 2: A screenshot from the Lions of Time.
users, we invited to the event a group of families having children
in the 7-9 age range. The children who participated at the event
were 12, 5 females and 7 males. 9 of them have extensively played be very engaged in this last part of interaction with the app. On
the swipe story, and we have based our main observations on their average, they spent 15/20 minutes (including 5/10 with the true
interactions. For the trial, we had 7 Android-based tablets and 2 story) to interact with the app and then get fed up
Android-based smartphones.
We left the children free to interact with the swipe-story, giving 4 CONCLUSION
as little instructions as possible, telling them only that they were
This limited and initial evaluation in the wild showed how the mo-
there for the launch of a new app for children, and they would be
bile app has been specially developed in order to win the attention
the first to try it. In this way, we could follow the evaluation in the
of the little ones. The children, despite being very young, have not
wild approach, according to which empirical studies are carried out
had any problem in the immediate use of the story, a sign that the
in situ and participants are free to use the evaluated application
digital natives are used to using new technologies not only to play,
without constraints and for their own situated purposes, while their
but also to communicate and above all to learn.
activities are logged unobtrusively [10]. In fact we were there in
In the short period of use they managed to quickly learn what
4 observing them, and one of us video-recorded the children and
the app showed, even if with important and culturally advanced
their interactions for further post hoc analysis.
contents, without getting bored or learning difficulties.
In general, we observed that, probably due to their young age,
As future improvement, we should think of a series of images
the children tended to listen and pay attention to the narrative voice
with comics and/or narrating voice also for the in-depth analysis
of the story, from one scene to another, and they run towards the
provided when clicking on question marks, in order to improve the
games at the end. Only 2 of them clicked on the question marks on
level of the engagement proposed by the app.
the screens and on the symbols, through which are opened further
Another improvement could be that of expanding the quantity
information about points of interest (Figure 1), providing more
of games proposed at the end, also linking them to moments of
historical-pedagogical information. These last ones were realized
didactical learning and deepening, and introducing gamification
in very long texts that replace the animated and sound narration
mechanisms to increase the children involvement.
with a static caption, breaking somehow the narrative rhythm.
As long-term goal of the project, the ambition is to bring the
Re-analyzing the video we noticed that the children have no
application of the swipe story methodology to every possible ap-
problem with the swipe-based progress of the story, also because a
plication context even beyond the management of resources and
hand-shaped affordance suggested them how to go ahead. We have
cultural heritage. The current challenge is to imagine the ways
noticed that 3 of them followed the story with limited interaction,
in which a better ability to narrate can create value for individu-
while on the contrary, 3 others continually tapped on the screen to
als, businesses and society as a whole. In the future we want to
move the story forward more quickly, and 2 others instead swept
continue to spread and enrich knowledge, bringing the narrative
continuously to proceed faster.
methodology of the swipe story in the most diverse social contexts.
It seemed that those children felt the need to interact more than
they should with the story, but continuously touched to keep the
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
tape going faster and get there first, not so much to read. Most of
them spent a lot of time interacting with games at the end of the "I Leoni del Tempo - Archeostorie del Friuli Venezia Giulia" is a
narration (realized with the aim of developing knowledge or other trans-media editorial project promoted by ERPAC (Regional In-
skills), spending a lot of time on the memory and the puzzle games, stitution for the Cultural Heritage of the Autonomous Region of
less with the game for discovering how a city was made in ancient Friuli Venezia Giulia, Cataloging, Training and Research Service),
times, which was perhaps even less easy, because the affordances edited by Rita Auriemma, Valeria Cipollone, Michelina Villotta,
did not suggest the right actions to be taken. They all seemed to Paola Maggi, Renata Merlatti, Matteo Romandini. The publishing
system supports illustrated novel, developed by Red Whale (Ka-
3 http://www.salonelibro.it/it/chi-siamo/storia/edizione-2017.html tia Centomo and Evelina Poggi; text by Flavia Barelli; pictures by
4 http://www.lemusestudio.it/home.html
Arianna Rea and Simone Paoloni) and published by FORUM 2017
3
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