Designing for oral storytelling practices at home: A parental perspective

Storytelling at home is typically an oral practice that supports parents and children to make sense of their family identity. Parents play a key role in crafting the story plot and facilitating the child’s participation in the storytelling process. Yet in the context of digital technology, interaction design researchers have tended to focus on children and how digital storytelling tools can support them in their learning. Adopting a “family lens” the aim of this research is to understand the character of oral storytelling practice and identify opportunities for digital storytelling design. The findings outline a co-design workshop that involved a team of designers and parents, who regularly engaged in oral storytelling. Grounded in a systematic video analysis of the workshop alongside a reflection of the design decisions that unfolded, we contribute four new design opportunities centring on the themes of flexibility, shared experience, minimalism, and autobiographical memories. These opportunities can guide interaction design researchers interested in designing new digital oral storytelling tools for families.