Vim is a tangible narrative about energy futures. It is designed to illustrate how a story about a public issue could be designed for physical interaction and whether that interaction can encourage participation in that issue. To date, much research into tangible narrative has focused on fiction and childhood education. Energy, as a wicked problem, provides a challenging context for exploring how tangible elements could be used to tell public interest stories. In this paper, we offer an overview of key energy issues in Australia and the role of design in addressing community concerns. We describe Vim and outline how our design research approach informed decisions about form and interaction. An initial critique of our prototype suggests that public interest stories have qualities that diverge from fictional tangible narrative. In particular, factors such as where a story exists and the role of the reader need to take account of the real-world context and role of 'characters' and 'settings' outside of the story.
展开▼
