Dot and the Kangaroo: The book, the era, the issues

Time to settle on the content and user experience design for Dot and the Kangaroo! I’ve researched a bit more about the book and its story, enough to know that this would work well as a website on its own and I would not consider expanding to other old children’s books- there’s so much to cover here. Before I go into the UX design, time to settle on who the users are and what the content is…

Audience profiling:

Primarily Australians and those interested in Australian history. I’ve decided not to focus on children, because I want to be able to make it accessible for adults who may be interested in literature, Australia, history, wildlife and conservation issues. Its medium should appeal to the tech-savvy but I’d like it to be accessible for older audiences, wanting to reconnect with the old days. The book is simply and artistically written so that ‘grown-ups’ can still enjoy it – and sometimes people looking back on things from childhood go ‘oh, now I understand’ – and this is what I hope to achieve. The website should still be able to be accessed by younger audiences if they are interested, as well as non-Australians – the key messages really are applicable to the plight of animals throughout the world.

The story:

Dot and the Kangaroo tells the story of a young girl called Dot, who gets lost in the bush but is befriended by a red kangaroo. When it feeds her some berries she becomes able to talk to animals, and has some adventures before making her way home. She finds out about the ways humans interact with the environment through her discussions with the Kangaroo, Willy Wagtail, Platypus, Satin Bower Bird, Emu, and many other birds and native Australian animals. According to ‘Bottlesnikes and Other Lost Things: A Celebration of Australian Illustrated Children’s Books’ (Juliet O’Conor, 2009, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, p.66-7), Dot and the Kangaroo’s strong conservation message deals with Australians’ treatment of wildlife in the late 1800s. In ‘Revisiting Dot and the Kangaroo: Finding a Way in the Australian Bush‘ (2007, Australian Humanities Review), Ulla Rahbek asserts that one of the key messages in the story is of the importance of security and having a safe home.

Yoram Gross made a film version in 1977, combining live footage of Australian settings with animations of the characters.

A truly Australian film, it makes use of some great ideas for incorporating our culture and locations. I like the way it uses found recordings of the bird calls and animal noises. My material will stick with the book’s original illustrations I think, because of the issues with copyright and not over-complicating things more generally.

The era:

I’ve been researching further into the life and times of Australian children in that era. Like in the old books I found, I’d like to include some little artefacts about the times, as if they were tucked into the book’s pages. Old photos, newspaper snippets, letters, scraps of paper, perhaps a small toy – those kinds of things.

The ABC provides succinct interesting timelines of the historical context and local events.

The Government website also provides some fascinating information about colonial history (eg the changing face of early Australia). But what was childhood like?

The UTS library provides some interesting books which I will enjoy delving into further:
–The Endless Playground: Celebrating Australian Childhood
–Australian Childhood: A History
–Stories of Herself When Young: Autobiographies of Childhood by Australian Women

From books and oral histories in museums and other sources, I will glean some stories of childhood for Pedley’s original audience – what life was like at school, at home, some clips from Australian folk songs from the time, what kids did for fun. I’d also love to include some pictures and old photos. I managed to track down some photos of my Great Aunty Bet:

Great Aunty Dot as a baby

Great Aunty Dot (Dorothy Jones) on the right, with siblings, c.1915

Girls at ‘Empire Day’

Either Dot’s mother or grandmother: Eliza

Hopefully, by exploring the personal histories shown in the website, users may be inspired to try and chase up their own pasts. Finding these images have shown that if these kind of things aren’t recorded, they just aren’t known, and are lost in history.

The issues:

I’d also like to include some sections on the current climate for conservation of Australian animals. I think it’s striking and rather sad that the conservation issues in Dot and the Kangaroo are still pertinent more than a century on. I am passionate about environmental issues, and I think that using this book as a exploratory method could be a good way of introducing the ideas to a new audience. Waterlife is a brilliant example of an online documentary which shows how these kinds of ideas can be presented (see earlier post). Australia’s endangered species are still very much under threat, and there isn’t enough money to conserve everything. How do we choose which species receive funding and which are left to fend for themselves? I could create small profiles or ‘scenes’ of a number of issues, with links to further information and ways for the audience to actively address the problems.

Several organisations/websites are very helpful for this information for this section, including:
–Australian Conservation Foundation
–World Wildlife Fund
–The Wilderness Society
–Earth’s Endangered Creatures: Australia
–Caring for our country
–EPBC Act List of Threatened Fauna

And there are many more. A simple search of the SMH archives reveals many topical issues, such as:
–Unregulated wildlife trade 
–The logging industry and forestry
–Recreational hunting 
–Natural disasters and pesticides 
–Lack of action 

These are the kinds of topics I would like to address, and I believe that exposing audiences to them though a documentary via a story like Dot and the Kangaroo will help the cause.

Gosh. The scope of my project has become rather huge. For the sake of this semester, I would only be able to provide a few examples from the history and issues, and probably only be able to cover a few chapters of the book. However, it would be nice to make a complete version one day…

On eBooks, audiences, pirates and kangaroos

I think it’s now timely to discuss eBooks. I can definitely see the value in digitising books and making them available online – for availability and access, production costs and time amongst other reasons. They’re certainly rising in popularity too, with Amazon saying its Kindle eBook sales are now greater than traditional books. The Australian website ebookish is a great source of information about local developments in this area.

Project Gutenberg is a wonderful free site dedicated to providing a huge digital library / archive of eBooks, of works in the public domain. I think it’s a very worthy cause, and it’s amazing and encouraging that there’s so much support for it – 36ooo documents so far. Project Gutenberg have a mobile version, and the texts are available in variety of formats. Here’s what the converted classic looks like: HTML Treasure Island.

So what do I mean by Augmented eBook? I guess I want to have more than the book itself, with links to other information readily available and ingrained in the site. Tagging could achieve a sense of nonlinearity if people would like to read it according to themes (like in Stephen Fry’s myFry App, see earlier post). I’d like the users to be able to navigate the additional material separately too. Also, essentially, It’d be nice to be able to bring some of the pre-loved, treasured feelings you can get about books, and bring that to an digital book. So its other resource material will make it more than a printed book, and its aura and user interactions will make it more than an eBook. Does that make sense?

Rightio, Treasure Island: I need to nut out who the book is for, and who my website would be for. In the preface to the novel, Robert Louis Stevenson writes:

               TO THE HESITATING PURCHASER

               If sailor tales to sailor tunes,
                  Storm and adventure, heat and cold,
               If schooners, islands, and maroons,
                  And buccaneers, and buried gold,
               And all the old romance, retold
                  Exactly in the ancient way,
               Can please, as me they pleased of old,
                  The wiser youngsters of today:

               —So be it, and fall on!  If not,
                  If studious youth no longer crave,
               His ancient appetites forgot,
                  Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,
               Or Cooper of the wood and wave:
                  So be it, also!  And may I
               And all my pirates share the grave
                  Where these and their creations lie!

I guess my website would be creating a means for “the wiser youngsters of today” to access the book- it’s not so much the themes that are increasingly irrelevant, it’s their outdated format. The pirates and buried treasure will continue to entertain young minds, and the literary value of the book alone is worth sharing. But something I still have to figure out for my doco are the era and context disparities… with the story set in the 18th Century Europe and mysterious places, written in England in 1881 and Bernie McClintock read his copy in Australia in 1936. Hmmmmm. Is it getting too convoluted?

Unless….. I go with ‘Dot and the Kangaroo’? It was written in 1899 and published/read by Great Aunty Dot in the 1910s, so a bit more contained. Should I change to this book?
Pros- it’s contained in the one era. It’s Australian. It serves a cause (wildlife conservation). It’s intended audience is potentially clearer- children and people interested in that specific time in history. Whereas Treasure Island has heaps of versions and is possibly relevant to younger generations via other media, Dot and the Kangaroo is more due for a revival.
Cons-  I can’t remember anything of the story- but it’s shorter than T-Island and I can skim and refresh? Plus, I already know a lot more about Australiana than pirates. It doesn’t have the reader’s illustrations – but I can make them myself? And/or the original book comes with its own beautiful illustrations….

Things seems to be swaying in Dot’s favour. Luckily a lot of my research and conceptualisation applies to this new old book. Here’s Project Gutenberg’s version: HTML Dot and the Kangaroo. Oh hey, also, whereas Pedley dedicates her book to ‘the children of Australia’ for a specific and ongoing cause, Stevenson seems a bit more laissez-faire about whether his book stands the test of time, with his “so be it”s and being apparently willing to submit to the grave. I reckon if I were to ask the authors, they’d tell me to go with Dot. So be it!

Old books – the new adventure

(I’ve decided to scrap the serious alternate reality game thing – I really wouldn’t be able to make such a thing and none of the ideas were really shining for it anyway.)

So: Completely new idea!

Something that came up in my other research was that some old things, past-times, stories etc are being lost to new generations of children because of technological developments – but there’s no point in trying to fight this, I’ve decided we should work on ways to embrace the ways people use the Internet etc, possibly in order to revive these wonderful old things.

Earlier this year I discovered and read a really old book in a box at my parents’ house – it’s Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island”, owned by a schoolboy in 1936. His name was Bernie McClintock, and was the husband of a lady I used to know when I was young. I really loved reading this book because of its age and because of all the scrawling little drawings and notes Bernie made.

I’d like to use the book as a starting point (and possible navigation tool) for a website with a potential range of functions: firstly, to re-introduce old books and history to children, to open up the Internet and its possibilities for the elderly, and to inspire appreciation and dialogue between grandchildren and grandparents. Brainstorming, a site based on the book could:
-help children discover the Treasure Island world of pirates etc, re-invigorate the story for a new audience
-follow the fictional story with links to other stories and historical backgrounds of the work (like Re-Enchantment)
-help children discover the life of school boys in the 1930s
-be used as a connection method between generations  (could I make a site they could navigate together?)
-be a portal for old people to rediscover and remember their childhood. I remember reading somewhere that the Internet has become a great medium for the elderly- it provides access for so many things that have been lost to them for decades (songs, historical items and icons, snippets of media, etc) as well as providing social connectedness (here’s a psychological study ‘Using the Internet to improve the wellbeing of the elderly’)
-close the generational digital divide? It’d be lovely to make a site that acts as a catalyst for grandchildren to be curious about their relatives’ childhoods – I know that when I watched the Up series I became a whole lot more curious about my parents’ earlier lives (as they’re the same age as the series’ participants)

So, I guess the product I would be making would be an augmented eBook / interactive kind of digital archive, preserving and providing access for life before our modern day gadgets. At the moment I’m thinking of using the book as the main navigation somehow, possibly animating Bernie’s little drawings, and providing links to other information about childhood in the 1930s, such as school life, home life, contemporary music, games (see previous post), photos, the local and historical context, and personal stories. There’d also be more information about the book’s story and relevance, other versions of the work (looking up Treasure Island on Wikipedia shows heaps of  film and stage adaptions), interesting words and concepts that arise from the book, etc.

Some questions and initial areas which I’ll need to work out:
-How will I distinguish between the era the book is about, the era in which the book was written and the era in which it was read and decorated by Bernie? Is this getting too complicated?
-For a larger scale project, should I include other books with histories imbrued in them? (different classic children’s books, read in different eras…)
-Is it possible to make a site that is designed appropriately for both the elderly and the young? Simple layout, easy navigation, large text etc are fine strategies, but will there be a style that is suitable for both? And if not, which is the main audience I should choose?

Brainstorming

I need to get a concrete idea for my project about people and technology. Activate brainstorm!

-Serious alternate reality game: Participants are given week by week instructions of restrictions to their technology use, intended to make them appreciate the ‘real world’ but also the true functions of the technologies. They contribute their stories and share their revelations on a website.

-Alternative serious alternate reality game: Participants are given week by week updates of how much technological interactions they are allowed, in a future where technology is the main conduit for personal communication- Second Life as main life. If people are forced to live solely through devices will they appreciate returning to ‘normal’ life?

-Second alternative serious alternate reality game: “Digital native” participants are given weekly descriptions of the state of technology going back in time, eg week 1: 2011, week 2: 2001, week 3: 1991… They learn about technological advances in reverse, experience the satisfaction and inconveniences of doing things in the old days – simultaneously learning to appreciate what they have now and weaning from their dependencies.

-Self-performed data aggregation: Participants are given an easy device to record and keep tally of the number of times they find themselves wasting time on Facebook or checking their phones… the idea that if they have to keep track of these things they will have to reflect on their current usage. Data could be collated and graphed in appealing ways, different categories on a scrollable timeline kind of thing?

-Augmented reality game: A different thought on the issue… People love gaming and can achieve amazing things through it- why not use it to help themselves? If they made existing tasks for themselves (doing the laundry, writing that essay) as game achievements, would they be more willing to get them done? (…But is this an online doco? Probably not.)

-Another alternative for a serious alternate reality game: Heard of the group of hacktivists claiming to be from Anonymous who say they’re going to kill Facebook on the 5th of November 2011? What if this were to happen? Participants could track their activities up until that date, and share how their behaviour changes if Facebook suddenly disappeared from their lives. (Would I impose a complete social media restriction maybe? Seeing as the purpose of this is more to do with people’s lives rather than the protection of their privacy…) Could be an interesting experiment.

Ok, not entirely happy with any of these so I’m going to mull over some ideas a bit more… but I feel like I’m making some progress. I hope!

The vice of devices…

So I feel I need to clarify my position on the social impact of technology a bit more. By technology I mean modern interpersonal communications- social networking, phones, the Internet, etc. I know they facilitates so much, and can be used in really inspirational ways. But like anything that is used to excess, too much is simply that: too much. I think that this particular obsession is an especially relevant issue for today’s society, with younger generations using technology as an integral part of their lives.

Amber Case: We are all cyborgs now (I’ve included the link as well because the threads of comments are really interesting and engaging.)

This talk raises some challenging thoughts – is technology making us more human? I think there are both benefits and disadvantages, which come simply through the different forms of interaction. Yes, as a society we have greater means to become more connected, but at what cost? I’ve heard that some children’s games, usually passed down through word-of-mouth, are being lost because of the rise of Game Boys and things. For better or worse, society is changing and I think it’d be good to be more aware of it.

I guess my main problem with technological obsessions is that it’s a matter of whether we have control over our devices -whether we can direct our attention to them when we want, and from them to enjoy quiet moments of reflection. The vice of devices isn’t that they exist or any of their functions in particular, it’s how we use them.

So. Why am I talking about this? An alternative reality game / serious game format could be great way to introduce and challenge users to consider the impacts of their technological dependencies. Here’s an interesting company aimed at training people to be more aware and therefore productive in this technological climate  http://regainyourtime.com/attention-management/ … I feel that I need to do more research into the psychological implications for this topic, and real life as a medium. I’m also going to start thinking of an overall strategy of what I’d want the participants to experience in the online doco…