When Information, Narrative, and Interactivity Join Forces: Designing and Co-designing Interactive Digital Narratives for Complex Issues

Abstract

The world is inherently and tremendously complex, yet many people are not well-equipped to deal with complex issues such as sustainability. Consequently, the issues must be communicated appropriately to the public. Narratives are effective for complex issue communication (CIC), especially when delivered through interactive digital narratives (IDNs). However, no design methodology is currently available for IDNs for CIC, especially one that balances the IDNs’ information, narrative, and interactivity aspects. Thus, through a literature review, we propose two design methodologies: the first facilitates a comprehensive requirement gathering and design process, and the second restructures the first to enable co-design between interdisciplinary experts, each handling one of the aspects. The co-design methodology’s complex systems foundation unites the experts and eases their communication. We close this paper with a discussion of new design concepts in the methodologies, including analyzing the audience’s learning process as a hierarchy of atomic hermeneutic cycles and using a syuzhet to restructure the narrative according to the hierarchy.