Monsters, Children, and Libraries?

My 7 year old son loves monsters. Almost everyday he will draw at least a few monsters and give each of them a cool name. They have their own characteristics and sometimes made-up powers too. He once said to me that the monsters may look scary and angry but really they are kind, good monsters.

Looking at monsters and children from the HCI or IxD perspectives, they could be used as avatars for cool applications for children, just like the ones designed for one of the libraries in Taiwan. In the library, children will get to choose their favourite monster and it will assist them to use the library.

The children will be using a tablet to move around the library, searching for books they like to read, assisted by the monster in an augmented reality (AR) environment. How cool is that? This surely will enhance library experience for the children and will certainly attract them to want to go around looking for more books. You can check out the paper by Wu et al. (2019) for such an interesting application that draws children to reading books and loving library by using AR and monsters for sure!

Source:

Wu, K-C., Liu, C-C., Chiu, T-H., & Chen, C-C. (2019). Augmented Reality Navigation App and Metadata Icon Design for Children's Library. IFLA WIFC 2019, Athens, pp. 1 - 7.