University of Westminster

Harrow Campus
School of Media, Arts and Design
Master of Arts Design for Interaction
Tools, Technologies and Media
Lecturer: Roman Buj

Tools for Interactive Reading

Designers: Rodrigo Zuniga Andrighetti, Simone Nogueira

June 2006
 “Tools, media, and cultural artefacts are the tangible forms, or meditational means,
through which we make sense of our world and negotiate meaning with others.”1

Introduction

This project aims to explore tools as an important instrument to help people to read
electronic texts in an interactive process, constructing their own knowledge when
they interact with it, adding information, questions, definitions, recordings, links, and
so forth.

In order to present the development of this project this text was divided into three
parts. The first part shows a research about tools for learning. This was important to
realize how tools can be developed for different proposals, and in this case, for a
more cognitive process. Two projects are presented: the “gifts and occupations” from
Friedrich Froebel and the “Turtle” from Seymour Papert.

The second part explains the elaboration of the project by adding a research about
reading in a study context.

The third part presents the final project, which was based on a metaphor of the text
as a land to explore.

First approach: tools for learning

It has been a while since people started to develop tools in order to help them to cut,
hunt, build and draw. Tools became part of people lives represented by different
physical objects with different functions. More than that, tools became an extension
of the human body as they connected peoples’ intentions with their purposes.

1
Edith K. Ackermann. Constructing knowledge and transforming the world.
http://learning.media.mit.edu/mid_public.php
The first approach to develop this project was an investigation into tools for learning,
In the beginning the intention was to work with a tool to organize ideas within a
learning context. There were two examples researched about the use of tools in the
pedagogical process. The first one – the “Gifts and Occupations”-, developed by
Friedrich Froebel, is an example of a physical tool and the second one – the ‘Turtle’
developed by Seymour Papert, is an example of a computerized tool. Both of them
were developed with a ‘child centered’ concern in order to help children to develop
their skills, through a thoughtful and engaging learning process.

Froebel said that the children were his teachers and, with this statement, he
designed, between 1835 and 1850, a series of toys to teach children about
movement and nature2. This toys, known as ‘Gifts and Occupations’, where used as
tools to present formal subjects, allowing children to play and find out meaning in
what they were manipulating thus the learning should be the result of what they
explored.

Figure 1. Froebel’s gifts II, V and VI3.

2
Evelyn Lawrence. Friedrich Froebel and English Education. 1969.
3
Evelyn Lawrence. Friedrich Froebel and English Education. 1969
Figure 2. A class of Infants using a Froebel gift, 19064.

The gifts (a set of geometric blocks) and the occupations (basic craft activities)
consisted of spheres, cubes, cylinders, blocks, colored papers and cardboards.
These tools become “rich and various enough to enable the child to form a
representation of the surrounding world” (Lupton an Miller 1993).

Using a different technology but with a similar concept, Seymour Papert invented an
‘object-to-think-with’, the ‘Turtle’. Defined by him as “a computer-controlled cybernetic
animal”, the Turtle is a system which is programmed by children typing commands on
a keyboard5. It is possible to define this system as a tool, as it enables children to
explore and learn in an engaged process. For Papert the most important thing was to
demonstrate how children can learn using computers and how the computer can
change the way they learn. The difference in Papert’s system is that he focuses on
the mind, using the computer as an instrument to help children to build their own
intellectual structures. Papert was a very important influence for Alan Kay, one of the
earliest pioneers of object-oriented programming, personal computing, and graphic
user interfaces, as he demonstrates how “to work in using computers to find new
ways to reach children with powerful ideas of math and science”6.

4
Evelyn Lawrence. Friedrich Froebel and English Education. 1969.
5
Seymour Papert. Mindstorms : children, computers and powerful ideas. 1980.
6
http://www.squeakland.org/
Figure 3. The original Turtle

According to Papert the “child needs to explore a great deal before gaining mastery
of what the numbers mean but the task is engaging enough to carry most children
through this learning process” (Papert 1980). This is important to understand that
tools take some time from the users to ‘adapt’ to using them, but as soon they are
familiar with the system the tools become invisible. The intent becomes the main
concern.

Research about Froebels and Papert’s projects were helpful to start to think about
tools not only as a device but as an instrument to help people to interact in an
engaging way.

The project’s development

Language, a cognitive tool, is a tool which people developed in order to communicate

and record. Defined as "a system of signs that express ideas" 7 by Saussure,
language (written or spoken) is a powerful tool and maybe the most important in
people lives.

The first step to develop this project was to understand how the user could interact
with an electronic text in the most simple way without interfering with the structure of

7
Cours de linguistique générale – www.wikipedia.org
this text. At the same time allowing the user to record his/her own thoughts,
questions, connections and so forth when they are reading. A sign was designed as
a tool to be inserted in the text to represent the “add comment”. This interactive tool
allows the user to open and close a space in a specific place on the text to add a
comment. When the user closes the sign it remains in the text, showing the user that
there is information there.

Figure 4.1 Add comment.

Figure 4.2 Add comment.

After this concept was developed, another set of tools was designed for other
interferences on the text. One was for the construction of a diagram, another one to
extract key words and another to update information.
Figure 5. Diagram.
Figure 6.1. Key words
Figure 6.2. Key words
Figure 7. Information update.

In order to understand better how students read when they are studying, a research
was elaborated in a studying context. Eight students were interviewed about their
reading process. The concern being how they record their studies and what kind of
symbols they use in order to understand or memorise their reading. The research
was important to realize two kinds of signs used by the students: one set of signs to
stress something important and another to add information.

Figure 8. Student environment and adding comments in reading.

Another research took place with a magazine, in order to analyse how people
understand the structure of a text though the usage of punctuation, paragraphs,
spaces, signs, and so forth. The Lupton and Miller book “Design Writing Research”
was a very important reference at this moment to understand the history of written
language and the result of the visual effect of symbols and text together.

Figure 10. Visual reference in printed text.

Figure 11. Modern Hieroglyphs.8

After the research and the development of some tools the project reached a proposal.

Figure 12. “If text was a land…the textland”.

8
Ellen Lupton and Abbot Miller. Design Writing Research. 2004.
A metaphor was designed to realize the way people can interact with an electronic
text: text as a land to explore. Passing through three levels to reach the meaning and
to leave their impressions the user navigates through the text as if it were a land to
explore. First one fixes some “landmarks” to identify what are the most important
parts of the text and insert within these “landmarks” information, such as a comment,
question, link or a record comment.

Figure 13. Landmarks/highlight information.

Figure 14. Adding information.

Secondly one gives a ranting mark to the landmarks as a reference for the
importance of that part of the text.

Figure 15. Ranting marks.

Thirdly one checks where he/she had further comprehension of the text and indicate
where there are still problems to solve.

Figure 16. Checking.

The user can hide the ‘landmarks’ and return to it when it is necessary. The text
remains as in the beginning, as a land to still explore.

Figure 17. “The Texland”.

Bibliography

Lawrence, Evelyn. Friedrich Froebel and English Education. Lowe & Brydone:
London, 1969.

Lupton, Ellen and Miller, Abbot. Design writing research: writing on graphic design.
Phaidon Press: London, 2004.

Lupton, Ellen and Miller, Abbot. The abc’s of S„z: the Bauhaus and design theory.
Thames and Hudson: London, 1993.

McCullough, Malcom. Abstracting Craft: the practiced digital hand. MIT Press: USA,
1998.

Papert, Seymour. Mindstorms: children, computers and powerful ideas. The

Harvester Press: Brighton, 1980.

www.wikipedia.org - Cours de linguistique générale. Access in 26/05/2006.

www.squeakland.org/ - Squeak Land. Access in 26/05/2006.