Letters to José : a design case for building tangible interactive narratives

Abstract

The field of interactive digital storytelling has been largely focused on screen-based, algorithm-driven narrative systems. While a considerable number of tools, models and experimental cases have been built to explore different aspects of the narrative and system design, very few of them are applicable for the category of tangible narratives. This paper presents a design case, Letters to José, to contribute to the body of works in tangible storytelling. Conducted through a research through design process, the building and evaluation of this case reveals key design aspects and considerations for authoring tangibles narratives, as well as the interactive narrative experience it brings. From the design process and the study findings, we identify a critical design category – artifacts for storytelling – whose characteristics and roles in an interactive narrative system are discussed. In reflecting the decision-makings, we address the complex design problems for building tangible interactive narratives.