Featherbed Tales

Hearing a loved one’s voice is a powerful and resonant experience, something that we might take for granted with those who are a part of our daily lives. Unfortunately, there are a whole host of reasons why family and friends might be separated from one another, and often these circumstances can be exceedingly difficult on children. For Caroline, a children’s writer who is inspired by her surroundings in the UK’s stunning Peak District, three distinct events brought about a realization of just how powerful a familiar voice can be, sparking the idea for her digital storytelling platform Featherbed Tales.

The first event was the deeply tragic death of a close friend who passed away from a brain tumour shortly after her family had adopted a young son—the mother had recorded a voice message welcoming her son to the family, and this would become the only direct communication he would ever have with her. The second event took place shortly after, when Caroline was taking part in a swim at Coniston Water and was suddenly flooded with a surge of childhood memories upon hearing the voice of a woman who turned out to be a teenage friend who she had not seen in decades.

These two seemingly disparate events came together when Caroline remembered how, when her father-in-law had passed away years prior, his wife had kept his voice recording on their message machine for the comfort and reassurance it brought her when she would call and listen to it. As a writer, Caroline knew of the vast possibilities and power within a voice, and she began to consider how much more meaningful it might be for children if the voice of their book’s storyteller was that of a loved one who couldn’t be with them for story-time.

The concept that Caroline eventually came up with was the creation of a platform that provides recordable digital picture books for people who can’t be there at story-time. Now, as a children’s writer who understands the ins-and-outs of what makes a great picture-book for kids, Caroline knew she had one half of the project under control. But as for how one might create a platform that could house various books and voice recordings that can all be tailored to individual users? Needless to say, this was an entirely different story.

After a couple false-starts, Caroline came into contact with a previous Bad Dinosaur client who had been a fan of our approach to building the MVP (minimum viable product) way, and recommended that Caroline get in contact for a consultation and workshop. And after a few hours of workshopping during an initial meeting it quickly became clear to Caroline that Featherbed Tales and Bad Dinosaur were a perfect match.

One of the things that Caroline found the most exhilarating and important about those early fact-to-face meetings was that there was a strong output focus, so when she received the proposal for the platform it was clear, easy to understand, and most importantly provided detailed examples of the various user paths, all of which created the type of long-term outlook that she had been hoping for with her project.

Caroline then began meeting with Ian (lead developer) and Elliot (lead designer) once a week via zoom meetings to discuss the various features and design details of the platform. The team chose to create a Web App that allows users to choose from a variety of Caroline’s books and record personalised audio, so when the child turns the pages of their e-book, the narrated audio will play, thereby allowing the narrator to read to the child in a virtual format.