Entangled Storyworlds
An extended reality solution for engagement and immersion on moving pictures
Role: Experience Designer & Narrative Systems Developer
Tools: User Research · Narrative Archetypes · Interaction Design · Double Diamond Model
Year: 2022
Overview
How might we enhance children’s emotional engagement with moving pictures by integrating spatial storytelling and interaction design?
Entangled Storyworlds is an experimental Extended Reality (XR) concept designed to deepen children’s cognitive and emotional immersion in audiovisual narratives. The project proposes an interactive installation experience that spatializes key storytelling archetypes, allowing children to co-create meaning through embodied interaction. Inspired by the logic of dreams, mythic structures, and children’s imaginative play, the system blurs the boundaries between viewer and participant.
Design Process
1. Discover; Understanding Children’s Narrative Engagement
- Traditional screen-based content for children offers passive engagement.
- Research shows children benefit cognitively from embodied and multisensory experiences.
- Existing XR projects often prioritize visual novelty over narrative depth.
- Emotional learning is most effective when children have agency within symbolic or archetypal frameworks.
- Key Insight:
Children’s understanding of stories expands when they can physically explore emotional and symbolic dimensions of narrative.
2. Define; Framing the Challenge
Design Question:
How might we design a multi-sensory, interactive experience that supports children’s comprehension of complex stories while enhancing emotional engagement?
3. Develop; Exploring Solutions
We explored a range of child-centered, spatial narrative frameworks guided by classic story structures. Core design criteria included:
- Grounding interaction in universally familiar story archetypes (e.g., Hero, Shadow, Guide)
- Offering intuitive XR gestures instead of screens or text creating flexible, branching story paths through space
- Ensuring emotional resonance through audio-visual cues and symbolic settings
4. Deliver; The Proposed System
The final design proposes XR experiences as lateral content. These experiences initiates by markers and clues provided by main contents on large screens. Children interact with the content and physically navigate through different “story realms” representing narrative archetypes:
- Modular Pathways: Children choose which character’s emotional journey to follow (e.g., Courage, Fear, Curiosity)
- Spatial Interaction: Movements, gestures, and proximity trigger story fragments
- Narrative Continuity: Audio cues and environment design ensure narrative logic even in non-linear paths Immersive
- Play: The environment invites both solo and collaborative exploration
AR using TV screen as marker to display 3D narrative and metadata
Conclusion
Entangled Storyworlds reimagines the child-media interaction as a layered, immersive, and participatory journey. By aligning narrative structures with interactive technologies and cognitive principles, the project creates new emotional and educational depth in animated storytelling.