One of the projects I enjoyed at Interaction 2007 - this dynamic soft picture book. It is not so much a book but a play area for children. I think the gist of it is that children can play with removal parts, moving them around and placing them in different places on the map. Locations of the (I call them “story bits”) are sensed and a computer application uses this to dynamically create some narrative. I might have that last part wrong. I never got the chance to ask for details and it is possible (if I am to speak honestly) that I wasn’t caring so much about how the system worked. I was mostly thinking “OH sweEET Reeses how I LOVE felt!!!”

No really…this got me thinking about interfaces/toys for children and the difficulties of designing computing systems that will be used in child play. I was wondering how much the dynamic soft picture book relies on a certain style of interaction from a child. Could it handle the case of say, story bits thrown across the room or stashed in a honey pot?

What if a child’s toy could sense these “misuses”? Would the information be used for the child’s benefit (ie. more and better play) or for the parent’s benefit (ie. she’s beheading her barbie dolls again, you might be spending too much time at the office). How could toy location information be used? (Actually screw people finding…thinking back to when I was four I would have LOVED an interactive toy map.) What about the relationship between a child and his or her favorite toy? Which toys get pocket privileges and how could tracking this favoritism help parents understand their child?