Comic Spin: A Comic Creation Tool Enabling Self-expression for People with Aphasia

Abstract

Comics, with their highly visual format, offer a promising opportunity for people who experience challenges with language to express humour and emotion. However, comic creation tools are not designed to be accessible to people with language impairments such as aphasia. We report the design and exploration of Comic Spin, an app for people with aphasia that supports the creation of comic strips by constraining the creative space. We explored the use of Comic Spin in two studies involving creative workshops. Findings showed that people were able to use Comic Spin successfully to create a range of narrative, humorous, and subversive comic strips, and that these enabled people to self-express in ways that went beyond the content of the comic strips themselves.