Outdoor health & impact finance
A pen that teaches handwriting through storytelling
year:2024Duration2 weekspartnermy rolefacilitation and systemic design
the brief
Concept
FriluftsfrämjandetHow might technology highlight, rather than hide, the analog practice of handwriting?
Improving handwriting takes repetition, and repetition is hard to stay engaged with. We explored whether an interactive story could carry students through it.
Caligo is a pen that encourages students to practice the skill of handwriting through interactive storytelling. With the help of an earbud, the student is dictated a story that they write down. The pen recognizes what has been written and progresses through the story as it is written.
The student is notified when words are misspelled and they have the opportunity to have a line repeated or a word defined. The pen encourages the student to learn by doing and provides opportunities for the student to co-write the story through choose-your-ending story construction.
Wizard of Oz Prototyping
To test pacing and experience of co-writing we used wizard of oz prototyping to test the concept. We used a script and text-to-speech to test dictation in full sentences, logical breaks and three-word chunks among ourselves.
Caligo functions like any other pen that students will encounter throughout their schooling. There is no need for a supporting digital aid needed as the student navigates through the stories through what they write. In order to have Caligo repeat the last three words of the stories the student writes <. In order to have a word defined the circle circles it.
Wizard of oz prototype setup using text-to-speechWriting as the interface
concept