Content Splitting & Space Sharing: Collaboratively Reading & Sharing Children's Stories on Mobile Devices

This paper addresses how children can collaborate by leveraging the ubiquity of mobile devices. Specifically we investigate how children (ages 8--9) read and share children's stories using two collaborative configurations: content splitting and space sharing. Content splitting is where interface pieces (e.g. words, pictures) are split between two or more devices. Space sharing is where the same content (e.g. a document) is spread or shared across devices. The results point to an overall preference for the content splitting configuration. Supporting collaborative configurations on mobile devices can help overcome one of the most significant usability issues these devices face --- their limited screen space.