Using Commercial Children’s Smart Pens for Prototyping Interactive Science Communication Media in the Digital Transformation of Production

Abstract

The Tiptoi smart pen has a huge fan following among children and their parents. Interacting with the pen makes it easy to see why: the pen has been designed to help children learn and explore complex information about a vast array of topics, from farms to learning about the human body. This work examined whether the Tiptoi pen could be similarly used to communicate science to the general public, taking a research project on the digital transformation of production as an example. Following an iterative design approach, we created an interactive book that allows self-directed engagement with the general research motivation, partners, and objectives of the project. Building on a SWOT analysis, we conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with four subjects to evaluate the prototype. The evaluation was generally positive. Participants recognized the playful and appealing design, and the vivid and tangible knowledge transfer as strengths but were unhappy with the pen’s toy-like appearance. They also identified potential functions such as real factory sounds and narrative techniques to enhance storytelling as opportunities and mobile learning apps and virtual reality applications as threats. The article concludes with alternative use cases for smart pens and actionable implementation guidelines.