Week 4 reflection: what makes a good digital text?

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Digital texts are more complicated that print texts. They are often transmedia, meaning they combine various types of media in the one work. Digital texts can be presented in formats such as PDFs, videos, websites and apps and may include illustrations, images, animations, audio and text.

One of the questions I asked in my last post was “what makes a good digital text?”.

I have spent the last few days pondering over this question. I initially thought it would be difficult to come to a conclusive answer to this question because of the sheer diversity of formats and types of digital literature.

However, Walsh (as cited in McDonald, 2013) provides a few guidelines for us:

• Setting – physical or emotional – needs to be authentic
• The reader needs to be able to empathize with characters and their feelings, and imagine what it would be like if we were them
• The reader is guided to understand situations; emotions and/or imagination are evoked
• The reader may consider issues and ideas through stories
• The language and structure of the literary text must be constructed so that they suit the age of the reader and the purpose of the author, for example, with the use of realistic description, dramatic or humorous dialogue, creative images, rich literary language.

I also believe an important aspect of what makes a digital text “good” is how the different media elements work together.

I explored an iPad app where the screen animations appeared very “busy” and were disrupting for those trying to read the text. Furthermore, different activities (such as finding the hidden crows) really distracted the reader from the text.

In another example of digital literature, the audio, video and text all worked together very well and gave readers an overall fantastic experience.

Instead of enhancing the text, media may distract readers. Good digital literature provide their readers with various types of media that seamlessly work together to enhance the text.

There are, therefore, two overall aspects of good digital literature: content and presentation.

References

McDonald, L. (2013). A literature companion for teachers. Marrickville, NSW: Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA).