Exploring Auditive Story Worlds : Design Sensitivities for Multi-linear Real Time, Mixed Reality, Interactive Storytelling Systems

Abstract: Like reading a book, stories told orally or acted out auditory invite subjective co-construction of narrative events through imagination. While an interesting characteristic, audio-based, fictive storytelling is not well explored in HCI. Eavesdropper is a prototype system for Mixed Reality Audionarrative, the stage being a miniature house and the actors residing in a spatialized, virtual, audio world. This work accounts for development and evaluation of some contextually unconventional, properties of one current iteration of the system, aimed at facilitating an exploratory mindset: sections of the narrative unfolding in parallel, controlled by parameters the user is only partially aware of. Through qualitative evaluation with users, I report on how these properties affected the way a story world was experienced, explored and interpreted. The findings, coupled with reflections on the design choices made, are then synthesized to a set of design sensitivities meant to inform and spur discussion and further inquiry into similar systems exploring audio as the primary mean for conveying narrative.