Digital storytelling: recommendations

The AthenaPlus "Workshop on Interactive digital storytelling for mediation and valorisation of cultural heritage", organised in Berlin last 9 October 2013, gave the opportunity to illustrate the key trends identified in the study on digital storytelling for DCH (D5.2) and to discuss about it with professionals which have a strong expertise in innovative projects leading.

It was found that a digital storytelling project needs to respect some prescriptions to be efficient, innovative and to propose an original type DCH mediation. A concept requires all our attention: User experience.

Within an advanced storytelling project, users must be active in order to promote a new vision of cultural heritage. Thus, user experience is an important concept that must be supported by a special design work to produce immersive and responsive devices. User experience is also guaranteed by the exploration of new visit spaces such as cities, which could become a real enriched visit area, so we have to investigate this application field by implementing mobile and generative storytelling device. Finally, we have watched that game mechanics are very good process to improve and redesign mediation.

The following recommendations were extracted from AthenaPlus D7.2 Analysis, scenarios use cases, opportunities of innovative services for DCH, and future development (PDF, 2232 kb), edited by the Michael Culture Association.

RECOMMENDATIONS OVERVIEW

NEW MEDIATION FORMS BASED ON DIGITAL STORYTELLING POTENTIAL

  • Promote cultural heritage on every day life
  • Create an enriched visit space as a new learning environment
  • Support the visitor before, during and after the visit
  • Make stories interactive and allow to users to interact to the story content
  • Combine several devices to develop a transmedia narrative universe
  • Strengthen the story by creating an immersive experience

STRATEGIC WATCH ON INNOVATION, EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND KEY TRENDS

  • Stimulate cultural heritage mediation with augmented reality devices
  • Make stories more contextual
  • Give opportunity to users to create their own stories
  • Develop innovative Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI)
  • Encourage immersion into the past
  • Be in line with social web and semantic web convergence
  • Open up to new opportunities of diffusion, partnership and funding

CREATION AND MANAGEMENT OF DATA AND METADATA DEDICATED TO STORYTELLING

  • Exploit the narrative potential of cultural data
  • Promote the reuse, editorialisation and enrichment of existing contents by using aggregation process
  • Create indexing process dedicated to narratives combinations of digital resources.
  • Base your storytelling project on collaborative data indexing
  • Experiment the possibilities of artificial intelligence to edit content and to   tell stories

EFFICIENT TOOLS TO MANAGE ADVANCED STORYTELLING

  • Choose adapted solutions of digital resources management
  • Use all the potential of mobile technologies to create locative storytelling
  • Use existing services and technologies when possible

THINK LIKE A LABORATORY TO DESIGN YOUR STORYTELLING SERVICES

  • Develop an integrated methodology for site-specific intervention
  • Encourage the users involvement

ASK THE GOOD QUESTIONS AT THE RIGHT TIME

  • Develop an IPR policy openness oriented and supported by a specific reflection on IPR management, accessibility and reuse of the data
  • Bring together specific skills to answer to news right issues

CREATE PUBLIC INTEREST AND KEEP YOUR PROJECT ALIVE

  • Find the best way to present your storytelling project
  • Create and animate user community around narratives process