Practice-Based Research Project
Library of Emotions: Interactive Media for Emotional Literacy
If naming a feeling more precisely changes how it is experienced, what would an interactive system designed to support that naming look like?
Abstract
Library of Emotions is an ongoing practice-based research project examining how interactive media can support emotional literacy — the capacity to recognise, differentiate, name and reflect on emotional states. The project takes emotional granularity as its central design concern: the observation that people differ in how finely they distinguish between feeling states, and that finer distinctions are associated with different ways of responding to them.
The enquiry is conducted through the design and iteration of interfaces, narrative structures and interaction patterns, treating prototypes as instruments for examining what an emotional vocabulary can be made to feel like when it is navigable rather than listed. The project is not a clinical instrument and does not assess or diagnose emotional states.
The project’s first peer-reviewed output was published at the 21st International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG ’26), where the mobile prototype is presented as a design approach for supporting mental health literacy through emotional granularity and reflective play. That paper is open access and is the citable record for the prototype; this page tracks the wider project around it.
Research at a Glance
Question → contribution → evidence, in brief
Research question
How can interactive media support emotional granularity — the differentiation and naming of emotional states — through interface, narrative and interaction design rather than through instruction?
Problem
Emotional-literacy tools frequently present emotion as a fixed list to be selected from. That framing supports reporting but does little to support noticing, comparison or reflection, and it treats vocabulary as a lookup rather than as something to move through.
Approach
Research through design: iterative prototyping of interfaces and interactive narrative structures, with design decisions documented so that the reasoning remains inspectable alongside the artefacts.
Contribution
A design approach for interactive experiences that support awareness, precision in emotional naming and safe reflection — first published at FDG ’26 — together with the prototypes that evidence it. Further patterns will be reported as the project develops.
Findings / Outcomes
A mobile prototype whose loop moves from precise emotion selection, through symbolic and tactile mini-games, back to brief reflection — published and peer-reviewed at FDG ’26. Further interface and narrative-structure studies are ongoing.
Limitations
The published work presents a design approach and prototype, not a controlled evaluation. The project has not been evaluated with participants, supports early recognition rather than treatment, and is not a clinical or diagnostic instrument.
Questions this research can help answer
- How can interactive media support emotional literacy?
- How can interaction design support emotional granularity rather than emotional reporting?
- What design patterns support reflective play?
- How can an emotional vocabulary be made navigable rather than listed?
Limitations & status
What this research does not establish:
- The project is in progress; the published output contributes a design approach, not evidence of effect.
- It has not been evaluated with participants and involves no clinical assessment.
- It supports early recognition and reflection rather than treatment.
- Design directions described here are subject to change as the research develops.
How to Cite
APA
Olarte Ávila, T. C. (2024). Library of Emotions: Interactive media for emotional literacy [Practice-based research project, RMIT University]. https://taniaolarte.com/research/library-of-emotions
BibTeX
@misc{olarteavila2024library,
author = {Olarte {\'A}vila, Tania Catherine},
title = {Library of Emotions: Interactive Media for Emotional Literacy},
school = {RMIT University},
year = {2024},
note = {Practice-based research project, in progress},
url = {https://taniaolarte.com/research/library-of-emotions}
}Persistent URL
To cite the prototype itself, please cite the FDG ’26 paper (DOI 10.1145/3815598.3815672) rather than this project page.
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