Project

Alph

University of Baltimore

An online sociable reading environment

Audience

Kids born into the digital age and who therefore expect their media to be interactive and interconnected

"I would like to read a book but..."

Objective

Develop a reading environment attuned to the perceptions and practices of the digital age in order to encourage the development of literary practices among young people

Recognizing that reading is primarily a social act and that in the digital age socialization increasingly occurs in and through various digital forums Alph seeks to create an not only read the narrative encapsulated within the text but also socially interact with other readers within the pages of a digital book

How

Conducted contextual inquiry and participatory design sessions with kids

Used Flash, Flash Remoting and MySQL to develop an application in which readers can leave emotive notes to one another anywhere on the surface of scanned physical book pages thereby preserving the look and "feel" of the book while imbuing it with digital age abilities

Results

This project is currently a work is progress however early field trials conducted in the US and Austria have shown highly favorable results

To see Alph in action have a look at this short (3:26 minutes) video

To learn more on Alph and the results of the field trials have a look at my publications