The effects of visual contextual structures on children's imagination in story authoring interfaces

This paper investigates how the presentation of contextual visual images may influence a child's imagination during the use of authoring systems to create digital content. This issue is particularly significant to understand what supports the child's creativity in authoring systems in creative storytelling. We address specifically children aged 8 to 10 because of the "FourthGrade Slump" phenomenon whereby children experience a decrease in creative engagement at this period. We carried out a study in which children used a storytelling system that allows the user to physically enact stories in a digitallyaugmented space contextualized by either a contextual background image or a blank screen. Using methods of video coding and analysis, we uncovered themes relating differences between children's enactment in the presence of a digital background and without in terms of both the process and product of storytelling. We discuss implications that the themes have for the design of story authoring systems for children.