As human actions continue to threaten wildlife, international organizations stress the importance of global environmental education.Teaching children about conservation is key to shaping their future behaviors.However, it is also important to create experiences that engage children with their local biodiversity while informing them about these issues.Seizing this opportunity, we designed, developed, and conducted a pilot study on an interactive, story-driven game with augmented reality (AR) to engage children aged 9 to 12 with local biodiversity and the impact of human actions on the environment.

Figure 1: The tapestry employed a user-centred approach in its design and implementation.We developed the visuals and crafted elements to support the narrative plot about marine noise pollution.The experience also incorporates tangible interfaces, audio and sensors to engage the users and sensitise them to this topic.

Figure 1: Collaborative Gameplay Structure of Mystiria: (a) Adult Child Layout -Each of the players has their own screen, which the other player is not allowed to see.The goal is for both players to communicate with each other through 3 mini-games (b) Aqua's Mini-game; (c) Electro's Mini-game; (d) Verdis' Mini-game.For (b), (c) and (d), the top screen represents the adult's view, while the screen on the bottom is what the child will see.In addition, players can also experience (e) Quiz Example; (f) Exploring Madeira Island; (g) Picture with Characters Abstract Current interventions for climate literacy are fragmented, as they target adults or children, rather than fostering collaboration and

Financial literacy is critical for economic empowerment, yet access to effective financial education remains uneven.Serious games provide an interactive and accessible approach to financial education, fostering decision-making and cognitive development through immersive gameplay.In this demonstration, we present DreamScape, a narrative-driven serious game designed to teach financial literacy through interactive storytelling and puzzle-based mini-games.By leveraging narrative immersion and problem-solving mechanics, this online demo illustrates how interactive systems and creative design can foster economic empowerment, contributing to a more financially literate and equitable society.

Our ancestors communicated stories through tapestries, using them to adorn both public and private spaces. Traditionally, these tapestries were static artworks hanging on walls without any interaction from the audience. Nevertheless, textiles offer a versatile medium, which can be crafted from various materials and colours and manipulated to produce unique, touch-responsive textures. Our vision is to integrate the tactile capabilities of weaving with capacitive sensor technology to create a media-immersed interactive art installation that explores the negative impact of noise pollution on marine life ecosystems. Marine animals, particularly cetaceans, heavily rely on sound for communication, navigation, and hunting, and noise pollution can disrupt these essential functions. By harnessing the storytelling potential of tapestries and the power of capacitive sensors connected to microcontrollers, we developed a storytelling experience with a unique embodied interface that aims to educate the general audience about pressing issues such as marine noise pollution.

Financial literacy is essential for personal and national economic well-being, demanding attention in today’s dynamic society. However, a concerning trend persists where individuals may lack basic financial knowledge; this is common even among individuals with a high level of education. This gap is especially concerning for young adults, as it prevents them from making informed decisions, managing finances effectively, and securing a stable future. This paper presents the development and pilot evaluation of a serious puzzle game prototype to enhance financial literacy among young adults. The pilot evaluation (N=7) explores various game mechanics to deliver engaging financial education. Initial findings indicate promising potential for serious puzzle games in facilitating financial literacy. The research aims to contribute insights into pedagogical strategies and game design enhancements, fostering informed decision-making and economic stability among young adults.

Anthropogenic activities damage nature in several ways. In the context of Madeira archipelago, we want to raise teenagers’ awareness about the impact that anthropogenic activities have caused on the species Monachus Monachus (Mediterranean Monk Seal). To raise awareness of the Monk Seal ecosystem among the teenage population this work proposes the design of a Visual Novel enriched with collaborative and gamification elements, called SeaStory. The main goal is to provide educational content in a more attractive and engaging format. Through the realization of a functional prototype, for the android operating system, we want to study how the use of collaborative features in interactive narratives influences the user experience and the delivery of educational content. This work presents a novel approach by adding collaborative elements in a Visual Novel providing in this way a contribution in the design of interactive media with the goal of providing awareness about endangered species and ecosystems among a teenage audience.

Abstract Transmedia Stories are becoming an increasingly important technique for the tourism industry. They are successful tools to engage, inspire and gather audiences online and offline. In this article, we describe the design, implementation and evaluation of Fragments of Laura, a bespoke Transmedia Storytelling (TS) experience designed to involve visitors in developing knowledge and awareness about the cultural and natural heritage of Madeira Island. Fragments of Laura (FoL) is composed of two interconnected components: a Location-Aware Multimedia Story, and a Hypermedia Platform populated with locally collected testimonies and interviews. Results from the extensive evaluation of Fragments of Laura, highlights the potential of interactive multimedia, TS in particular, in engaging tourists with the destination values and community. Our contribution is twofold, on one hand we extend on the state of the art of multimedia interactive storytelling, with the description of the Fragments of Laura TS artifact. On the other hand, results from FoL evaluation highlight how the artifact impacts on the tourism experience its implications for the design of future tourism driven TS experiences.

Many destinations' economies strongly rely on tourism. Therefore, it is crucial to meet tourists' expectations, so they will return to the destination. The geographical formation of certain touristic islands often leads to local climates where it can be rainy and windy on one side of the island, whereas the other part is sunny. In this paper, we present a novel use for a network of sensors, LightBeam, a mobile location-based application aiming to improve the tourists' experience. The application focuses on providing real-time guidance for tourists seeking sunlight to maximize their holiday experience by suggesting the closest points of interest (POIs) to the user with the "best sunlight". To achieve this, we implemented and installed a network of geospatial sensors. The data from the sensor network is combined with the current location of the users to provide recommendations. We report on the initial design and prototype of LightBeam.

This paper investigates whether location and medium affect the experience of interactive storytelling in the context of mobile Virtual Reality systems. For this purpose, we discuss the development of Fragments of Laura, a location-aware multimedia application in a larger interactive transmedia story, where users can view a 360° narrative in a 3D environment. We conducted a user study with the intention of measuring Presence, Flow and Narrative Transportation and evaluate four scenarios resulting from the combination of two independent variables - location (existence and absence of links between the test location and the narrative location) and medium (tablet and mobile virtual reality with smartphones). Our results show that the user experience while watching a narrative fluctuates depending on the location where is viewed and the device in which is viewed. Locations linked with the content lead to a significantly increased Flow, Presence, and Narrative Transportation.

As 360° immersive Mobile Virtual Reality (MVR) experiences are reaching a wider public, thanks to inexpensive and more powerful mobile technology available on the shelves, it is also rapidly growing as a research arena to investigate how to best design such VR experiences. Adding to this research direction, in this paper we report on an exploratory study designed to evaluate users perception in "Fragments of Laura", a mobile location-aware storytelling experience that uses MVR in a public setting. Results from the study encourage us to pursuit investigation as the experience was well received by the participants and provided an enjoyable experience, however, we discovered that there are still design challenges to overcome in order for MVR to be widely adopted within a public setting. Such as, finding the balance between multimedia and immersive multimedia, providing an "onboarding" time for such media and proper locations for the content consumption.

Location-based services, narratives and interactive experiences have a substantial tradition in human–computer interaction. Building on this background, we report the iterative design process, prototyping and evaluation of Seven Stories, a location-based narrative experience. The design includes two novel features that aim to link the user experience more closely to its physical context: visual markers scanning and a narrator. We have evaluated Seven Stories with two studies. Study 1, with 12 participants, was conducted using qualitative methods to assess the overall user experience. Study 2, with 21 participants, was conducted using quantitative methods, to evaluate the role of the markers and narrator as specific design features. Our contribution is to illustrate, through both qualitative and quantitative findings, how these two novel features influence the user experience, and what implications they have for design.

In this paper we present Lucid Peninsula, an interactive installation designed to immerse participants in a dreamlike, post-apocalyptic story world. The goal of the installation is to offer a way for people to experience the future through a physical interactive installation. To achieve this aim we designed and developed the interactive DreamScope device, while the Time's Up collective designed and built the physical installation. On one side with the Dreamviewer binoculars users will be able to see the world outside and absorb data relating to factors such as air quality, presence of plant and other life forms, etc. On the other side of the installation, the audience will be able to borrow mobile devices (Dreamcatchers) and venture into the actual landscape of the city, in order to "catch" the dreams of the inhabitants of the peninsula, which are mixed with memories of the world before it was transformed.

iLand is a technology enhanced location aware narrative experience that captures and exposes the rich oral culture and traditions in the Island of Madeira for a wide variety of audience in particular foreigners and tourists. Using the Madeira main city, Funchal, as a setting to bring a new level of engagement of the audience with the old part of the city and its traditional stories. With this aim in mind we designed an immersive experience in the old part of the city were the local settings and its tangible details merge with the story world and events. As the experience unfolds the audience is taken deeper into the local traditions as well as into the old part of the city. In order to achieve this we designed and produced a series of short stories carefully distributed in the real space. The experience is mediated through the Placeware location aware mobile story platform [1] to functions as a tangible interface between the local stories and architectural setting and its audience.