StoryFaces: Children Exploring Emotional Expressions in Storytelling with Video

We introduce StoryFaces, a new composition and storytelling tool for children to explore the role of emotional expressions in children’s narrative. StoryFaces invites children to record emotional expressions and then automatically composes these recordings in storybook illustrations. After children watch their faces bring a story to life, they can “go backstage” to play with the story by rearranging the videos and altering the story text. This paper presents our exploratory prototype, a design rationale that focuses on supporting children’s emotional growth through storytelling play and reflection, and reports on a formative evaluation with two children ages 4-6. Results from the evaluation suggest that children ages 4-6 are engaged in the activity, are excited to create a variety of emotional expressions, find the narratives funny yet clear, and work to re-craft and reinterpret story meanings through iterative editing and play with both video and textual content. Our goal is to provoke new ideas about how pretend play with digital tools can Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). empower young children in a narrative process.