Tangibles and Storytelling

Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) are systems with the goal of giving a physical aspect to accessing information from a digital medium. Combining physical interactions with digital information in order to evoke a sense of interactivity and control over a system. Coupled with storytelling, these user interfaces become potent information relays, as well as being effective edutainment tools for younger audiences. This is because of physical interactions are extremely significant in providing stimuli for the memory, thus facilitating learning.

In this paper, we discuss and evaluate several different research papers about various different tangible user interfaces designed to facilitate interactive narratives and storytelling. These systems provide insight to the dynamics of interactive storytelling, and how these tangibles can be used to deliver non-linear storylines and detach the users from the role of a passive observer to an active role in the stories.

Each system offers fresh intriguing steps taken to reinforce this interactive experience, but with common shortcomings that can be traced back to the physical artifacts utilized in the storytelling. Care must be taken when bridging the virtual world with the physical devices used for interaction, and they must be influential and unobtrusive to the user as well.