StoryCraft: The Bedtime Story Redevised

The bedtime story redevised

Where will your stories take you tonight?

For some parents, it’s a struggle just to open a book each evening with their kids, not even to mention finding the energy to make up a story that is engaging and funny. And to many of us, storytelling almost seems like a superpower that only special people possess.

But what if you had a friendly guide who helped you make storytime fun and unique everytime? Meet StoryBoy, that’s what he does.

StoryBoy

Designing by Principle

Our goal in creating StoryCraft was to foster quality family time through telling unique imaginative stories together. We used three guiding principles to make difficult design decisions along the way.

Designing for Courageous Creativity

When asked a question, it’s so easy for a child to just say “I don’t know”.

So we erased the notion of wrong answers, provided a visual path that can make the child feel like a hero, and utilized several improv techniques to encourage participation.

“We erased the notion of wrong answers.”

Designing for Educational Guidance

A difficult design decision was in choosing if StoryCraft would be primarily educational or entertaining.

At some level, the love of story is ingrained in all of us, but the ability to create and tell stories in not. So we veiled the core teaching aspects behind carefully crafted storytelling sessions, providing the tools and just enough explanation so that the storytelling remains the focus. Also, in keeping with the goal of family closeness, we kept the parent as the child’s guide, while making StoryBoy the parent’s guide.

“I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.”

– Walt Disney

Designing for the “Funny Fun Factor”

The fun happens when we tell an unexpected story together.

So in addition to utilizing basic gamification techniques, we kept things fresh and interesting by building a dynamic story engine that cues creative ideas, twists stories around, serves up story-starters–augmenting your creative freedom, not inhibiting it. It makes every story unique, no matter how many times you tell it.

“Augmenting your creative freedom, not inhibiting it.”