RESEARCH & DESIGN
FOR PLAY & STORIES

Professor of Immersive Storytelling and Experience Design, I am a researcher and artist specialising in play and storytelling for children. Having a doctorate in Education and MA degrees in Research Methods, Early Childhood Education and Japanese Semiotics my work crosses academia and industry. I am the Co-Founder of a storytelling consultancy and studio called X||dinary Stories. 

My research sits at the intersection of experimental design and social sciences, focusing on digital storytelling, games and play on a range of platforms such as apps, augmented and virtual reality, as well as new content for television, all with an emphasis on media for children.

As an artist I use drawing, emerging technologies and game engines to explore experimental visual and multimodal methods as part of the research process. In this way I take an Information Experience Design approach to including participants in the research process, also to connect data findings [the information] to design and production [the experience].

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Funding

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2026                 Children’s critical engagement with technology in a good digital society: the case for hybrid arts education in formal schooling. ESRC Digital Good Network  
Lead. (Co-Lead) John Potter, UCL. 

2025                  Stories of Us. AHRC Locally Unlocking Culture through Inclusive Access (LUCIA).
Co-Lead. (Lead) Katherine Willis, University of Plymouth. (Other Co-leads): Hastings Commons Community Land Trust, Nudge Community Builders, Plymouth Octopus Project (POP), The Box, Prospect Brixham CIC, Social Life, The Data Place, University of Cambridge


2023                 Digital Voices of the Future: Children’s Visions of Future UK Treescapes Revealed Through Gaming. NERC, £100K
ESRC, £50K.
Co-Investigator. (PI) Simon Carr, University of Cumbria (Co-Is) Mersey Forest, MMU.

2023                Exploring Children’s Attitudes Towards Notions of Digital Good/Bad through Hybrid Arts Practice. ESRC, £50K.
Principal-Investigator. (Co-Is) RCA, GSA, UCL and X||dinary Stories.

2023                Rear Window for Brick Moon Virtual Theatre. Arts Council of Northern Ireland, £10K.  
Principal Investigator with Eleanor Dare, X||dinary Stories in collaboration with Big Telly.

2023                Communication Design in the Context of Child Health. Impact Accelerator Funding, University of Sheffield, £16K.   
Co-Investigator. (PI) Jill Thompson, University of Sheffield (Co-I) LEGO.

2022                Trials with MRI Playkit, TiTCH Network and University of Sheffield, £30K.
Co-Investigator. (PI) Jill Thompson, University of Sheffield, Sheffield Children’s NHS Trust.

2022-2023      Future of Broadcast Media for 7-11-Year-olds, AHRC via XR Stories, £24K.              Principal-Investigator with Eleanor Dare X||dinary Stories. Read more here. 



2019-2023       Promoting Disaster Resilience in Children: Developing a Network to Research Culturally Appropriate, Sustainable Public Health Interventions in Fiji and Samoa. GCRF, £25K.     Co-Investigator. (PI) Jill Thompson, University of Sheffield, Universities of Fiji, Samoa and Auckland (Delayed by COVID). Read more here.



2019-2021       VR and Mixed-Realities Play Kit to Prepare Under 10s for an MRI. Innovate UK. £388K (including additional COVID-19 support)
Principal Investigator. (Co-I) University of Sheffield, GSA, Sheffield Children’s Hospital NHS Trust. Read more here.



2021                Counter measures: Giving Children better control over how they're observed by digital sensors. EPSRC, £50K.            
Co-Investigator. (PI) Angus Main, Royal College of Art. (Co-I) UCL. Read more here.



2019-2020       Location-Based Virtual Reality Experiences for Children: Japan-UK Knowledge Exchange Network. ESRC/AHRC, £50K.
Principal Investigator. (Co-I) RCA, GSA, UCL, Hashilus, Japan, University of Tokyo, WEARVR.
Read more here.



2016-2018       The Potential Role of FabLabs and Maker Spaces in the Lives of Children. RISE, Marie Sklowska Curie Action, €531K.
Co-Investigator. (PI) Jackie Marsh, University of Sheffield. Read more here.

2016-2018       VR and Children: Emerging Possibilities and Challenges. Commercially funded, £45K.
Principal Investigator. Read more here. 

2016                Investigating the Design and Use of a New Smart-Toy in Relation to Children’s Play. COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), €2484. 
Principal Investigator. (Co-I) Vai Kai Ltd, Berlin. Read more here.



2015                Play and Creativity in Preschoolers use of Apps. ESRC, £54k.
Co-Investigator. (PI) Jackie Marsh, University of Sheffield, Cbeebies, University of Edinburgh, Foundling Bird, Dubit, Monteany Primary School. Read more here. 

2014                Developing Videogames & Play for Hospitalised children. AHRC, £30K.
Co-investigator. (PI) Wood, University of Sheffield. (Co-Is) Birmingham and Sheffield NHS Trusts, Stripey Designs and Distinctive Games. Read more here.

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Recent Conference 
Presentations & Talks

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Yamada-Rice, D. (2026) Experience Design Approach to Culture and Heritage, University of Cambridge (15/07/26)  
Yamada-Rice, D. (2026) Exploring Children’s Attitudes to Digital Good/Bad through Hybrid Arts Practice. Cambridge Data School, University of Cambridge (14/07/26).
 
Yamada-Rice, D. (2026) How can the arts make a meaningful difference to health research and applications? NEXUS Conference, University of Falmouth (23/06/26).
 
Yamada-Rice, D. (2026)Exploring Children's Attitudes Towards Notions of Digital Good/Bad using Hybrid Arts Practice. University of Southern Denmark(12/06/26).

Yamada-Rice, D & Potter, J. (2026) Case studies of the digital good, Digital Good Network. Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum (01/05/26).

Yamada-Rice, D. (2026) Research and Design for Cultural Heritage Data and Experience. Cambridge Data School, University of Cambridge (14/04/26).

Yamada-Rice, D. (2026) Exploring Children’s Attitudes Towards Notions of Digital Good/Bad using Hybrid Arts Practice. ReMAP Seminar, University College London (21/01/26).  

Yamada-Rice, D. (2025) Educational Oppression, Climate Justice and other ideas children shared in the co-design of a videogame to play and tell stories about trees. Adventures in Posthumanism Group, University of Plymouth (03/12/26). 

Yamada-Rice, D.(2025) Digital eco-pedagogies: Producing videogames with children for playing and telling stories about trees. Make/Play, Abertay University (27/11/2025).






 

On this site you can find details of my RESEARCH & GRAPHIC NARRATIVES with links to related publications, reports, stories and games/ 

There is also a BLOG which documents work and ideas as they are in progress interlinked with details of finished publications. 




Publications
Dare, E. & Yamada-Rice, D. (2026) X||dinary Methodologies and Methods. Radical research using hybrid arts practice. Palgrave. Open access.



Yamada-Rice, D. (2026) Controlling the Art School: Ideologies of Materials and a Speculative Vision for Hybrid Arts Education. Arts, Vol. 15(4). Open access.

Yamada-Rice, D. & Dare, E. (2025) Digital Eco Pedagogies: Producing videogames with children for playing and telling stories about future landscapes with trees. Global Studies of Childhood. Published online first 31/07/25.

Yamada-Rice, D. (2025) Socially Distanced Games and Play to Engage Research Participants Remotely. In: Remote Sensing 2: Prompts, Papers and Participatory Practices from the 2022 Symposium. Available online at: <UAL Research Online>.

Yamada-Rice, D., Dare, E., Love, S., Main, A., Nash, R. & Potter, J. (2024) Exploring Children’s Attitudes towards Digital Good/Bad through hybrid arts practices. Published online at: 
<https://digitalgood.net/>

Yamada-Rice, D. & Dare, E. (2024)‘In the Future We Will Make Our Own Superheroes’: Reflections on the Future of Broadcast for Children Aged 7–11. In: Crawford, D., Foss, J., Lambert, N., Reed, M. & Kriebel, J. (eds)Technology, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Education. Springer.

Scott, F., Parry, B., Marsh, J., Lahmar, J., Nutbrown, B.,  Scholey, E., Baldi, P., Law, L., & Yamada-Rice, D. (2023) Addressing the ‘whys’ of UK children’s YouTube use: a purposes approach. Journal Social Media and Society.

Thompson, J., Yamada-Rice, D., Thompson, S., Murray, L. and Taylor, M. (2023) Development and introduction of a mixed realities playkit: decreasing the incidence of general anaesthesia for paediatric MRI. British Medical Journal, Early Innovation Report. Online first (09/11/23). doi:10.1136/ bmjinnov-2023-001083.

Yamada-Rice, D. et al (2023) The Importance of Multimodal Play and Storytelling to a Mixed Realities Playkit for Preparing 4 to 10-year-olds for an MRI scan. Multimodality & Society, Volume 3, Issue 2. 

Dare, E. & Yamada-Rice, D. (2023) Queer Psycho and the HE Circus: Applying Queering, Magic and More-than-Human Theories to Immersive Visual Story Worlds as an Antidote to Late Capitalism. Presence, MIT.

Yamada-Rice, D. & Dare, E. (2023) The Future of Broadcast Media According to Kids: Final Project Report. Available online. 


Main, A. & Yamada-Rice, D. (2022) Evading Big Brother: using visual methods to understand children’s perception of sensors and interest in subverting digital surveillance. Visual Communication, Vol.20(3).

Yamada-Rice, D., Thompson, J., Love, S., Thompson, S. & McQuillian,H. (2022) Mixed Realities Playkit to Prepare Children for an MRI Scan: Findings for health, families and industry. Available online at: <http://dubit.us/mri>.

Fass, J., Yamada-Rice, D., Shelley, J. , Lewis, M. & Pappas, G. (2022). Information is Ugly. Visual Communication, Vol.20(3). Editorial.

Main, A.  Grierson, M., Yamada-Rice, D. & Murr, J. (2022) Augmenting Personal Creativity with Artificial Intelligence.C&C '22: Creativity and Cognition, June 2022 p.462-465. https://doi.org/10.1145/3527927.3531205. Published online at ACM Digital Library.

Dare, E. & Yamada-Rice, D. (2022) Reading the Cards: Critical Chatbots, Tarot and Drawing as an Epistemological Repositioning to Defend Against the Neoliberal Structures of Art Education. In: Filimowicz, M. (ed) Systematic Bias: Algorithms and Society. London: Routledge 

Nash, R., Yamada-Rice, D., Dare, E., Love, S., Main, A., Potter, D., Rodrigues, D. (2021) Using a collaborative zine to co-produce knowledge about location-based virtual reality experiences. Qualitative Research Journal, Vol.21(2).

Yamada-Rice, D. (2021) Children’s interactive storytelling in Virtual Reality, Multimodality & Society, Vol.1(1), p.48-67.

Ikon, E., Wee, C., Dare, E., Lewis, M., Biderman, K.,  Gordon, L., Pochodzaj, J., and Yamada-Rice, D, 'Exercises in Exorcism, Ways of Healing (through) Art Education'. In: Baier, W., Canepa, E., Golemis, H. (eds) (2021) Capitalism's Deadly Threat: transform!  London: Merlin Press.

Yamada-Rice, D., Dare, E. Main, A., Potter, J., Ando, A. Miyoshi, K., Narumi, T., Beshani, S., Clark, A., Duszenko, I. Love, S., Nash, R., Rodrigues, D., and Stearman, N. (2020) Location-Based Virtual Reality Experiences for Children: Japan-UK Knowledge Exchange Network: Final Project Report. Available online at: <https://ukjapanvr.wordpress.com/2020/06/13/nalprojectreport/>


Yamada-Rice, D. & Love, S. (2019) Designing tech for health: Developing a mixed reality playkit to help children who need an MRI Scan. RIAS Quarterly, Vol.38, p.57.

Yamada-Rice, D. (2019) Including Children in the Design of the Internet of Toys: In Mascheroni, G. & Holloway, D. (Eds) The Internet of Toys: Practices, Affordances and the Political Economy of Children’s Smart play.

Yamada-Rice, D., Rodrigues, D. & Zubrycka, J. (2019) Makerspaces and Virtual Reality, Chapter 5. In: Blum-Ross, A., Kumpulainen, K. & Marsh, J.(eds) Enhancing digital Literacy and Creativity: Makerspaces in the Early Years. Routledge.

Yamada-Rice, D. (2018) Licking planets and Stomping on Buildings: children’s interactions with curated spaces in Virtual Reality. Children's Geographies, Vol.16(5).

Yamada-Rice, D. and Marsh, J., (2018) Using Augmented and virtual Reality in the Early Childhood Curriculum. Printed Publication available online at:
<http://digilitey.eu/wpcontent/uploads/2018/06/DigiLitEY-Policy-VR.pdf >

Marsh, J. A., Plowman, L., Bishop, J, Lahmar, J and Scott, F, Yamada-Rice, D. (2018), Play and creativity in young children’s use of apps. British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol.49(4).

Yamada-Rice, D. (2018) Designing Play: young children’s play and communication practices in relation to designers’ intentions for their toy. Global Studies of Childhood, Vol.8(1), p. 5-22.

Yamada-Rice, D. (2017) Designing Play for Dark Times. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Vol.18(2), p.196-212.

Yamada-Rice, D. (2017) Using visual and digital research methods to capture young children’s interaction with and comprehension of images. In: Christensen, P. and James, A. (2017) Research with Children: Perspectives and practice, 3rd Edition, Routledge.

Yamada-Rice, D. (2017) Designing connected play: Perspectives from combining industry and academic know-how. In: Chaudron S., Di Gioia R., Gemo M., Holloway D., Marsh J., Mascheroni G., Peter J., Yamada-Rice D. Kaleidoscope on the Internet of Toys - Safety, security,privacy and societal insights, EUR 28397 EN, doi:10.2788/05383

Yamada-Rice, D., Mushtaq, F., Woodgate, A., Bosmans, D, Douthwaite, A, Douthwaite, I, Harris, W, Holt, R, Kleeman, D, Marsh, J, Milovidov, E, Mon Williams, M, Parry, B, Riddler, A, Robinson, P, Rodrigues, D, Thompson, S and Whitley, S, (2017), Children and Virtual Reality: Emerging Possibilities and Challenges. Available online at http://childrenvr.org.

Yamada-Rice, D. & Marsh, J. (2017) Working Together on Young Children’s Digital and Media Practices: Fostering Academic and Industry Partnerships. Published online and available for download here.

Marsh, J., Plowman, L., Yamada-Rice, D., Bishop, J. & Scott, F., (2016) Digital play: a new classication, Early Years an International Research Journal, Vol. 36(3). p. 242-253.

Marsh, J. and Yamada-Rice, D. (2016) Bringing Pudsey to Life: Young Children’s Use of Augmented Reality Apps. In: Kucirkova, N. and Falloon, G. (eds) Apps, Technology and Younger Learners. Routledge.

Nutbrown, C., Clough, P., Levy, R. Little, S., Yamada-Rice, D. Bishop, J., Lamb, T., (2016) Families’ roles in children’s literacy, Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, Vol.15(35).

Marsh, J., Plowman, L., Yamada-Rice, D., Bishop, J.C., Lahmar, J., Scott, F., Davenport, A., Davis, S., French, K., Piras, M., Thornhill, S., Robinson, P. and Winter, P. (2015) Exploring Play and Creativity in Pre-Schoolers’ Use of Apps: Final Project Report. Available at: <www.techandplay.org>.

Yamada-Rice, D. (2015) Semiotic Landscapes: Cultural
affordances of texts in and of Japanese landscapes. In: Pahl, K. & Rowsell, J. (eds) (2015) Routledge Handbook of Literacy Studies. Routledge.

Yamada-Rice, D. & Stirling, E. (2015) (eds) Visual Methods with Children and Young People. Academics and Visual Industry in Dialogue. London: Palgrave.

Stirling, E, Yamada-Rice, D with Walker, K. (2015) Introduction. IN: Yamada-Rice, D. & Stirling, E. (2015) (eds) Visual Methods with Children and Young People. Academics and Visual Industry in Dialogue. London: Palgrave. Chapter 1, p.1-13.

Hackett, A. & Yamada-Rice, D. (2015) Producing Visual Records of Movement: Making Meaning of Young Children’s Interactions with Place. IN: Yamada-Rice, D. & Stirling, E. (2015) (eds) Visual Methods with Children and Young People. Academics and Visual Industry in Dialogue. London: Palgrave. Chapter 3. p. 29-49.

Yamada-Rice, D. (2015) Visual Industry Perspectives on Production and Meaning Making: in dialogue with Jo Peel (Artist), Andrew Davenport (Foundling BirdLtd),Wendy Harris (Tutti Frutti), and Matt Burtonwood (Toy Designer). IN: Yamada-Rice, D. & Stirling, E. (2015) (eds) Visual Methods with Children and Young People. Academics and Visual Industry in Dialogue. London: Palgrave. Chapter 5 , p.73-85.

Yamada-Rice, D., Procter, L., Stirling, E. & Almansour M. (2015) Review: Margolis & Pauwels (eds) (2011). The Sage Handbook of Visual Research Methods, Visual Communication, Vol.14(2).

Yamada-Rice, D. (2014) The Semiotic Landscape and Three-Year-Olds’ EmergingUnderstanding of Multimodal Communication Practices, Journal of Early Childhood Research, Vol.12(2), p. 154-184.

Yamada-Rice, D. (2014) Using Multimodal Social Semiotic Theory and Visual Methods to Consider Young Children’s Interaction with and Comprehension of Images. SAGE Research Methods Cases Collection.

Hackett, A. & Yamada-Rice, D. (2014) Special Issue on New Directions in Research on Emergent Literacy. Early Education Journal, Vol. 74. 

Levy, R., Yamada-Rice, D. and Marsh, J. (2013) Digital literacies in the primary classroom. In: Hall, K., Cremin, T., Comber, B. and Moll, L. (eds) (2013) International Handbook of Research in Children's Literacy, Learning and Culture. Wiley-Blackwell.

Yamada-Rice, D. (2011) New Media, evolving multimoda literacy practices and the potential impact of increased use of the visual mode in the urban environment on young children’s learning. Literacy, Vol.45(1), p.32-43.

Yamada-Rice, D. (2011) A Comparative Study of Visuals in the Urban Landscapes of Tokyo and London, Visual Communication, Vol.10(2) p.175-186.

Yamada-Rice, D. (2011) The Benefits of Sign Language in the International Preschool Curriculum. In: Murphy, E. (ed) (2011) Welcoming Linguistic Diversity in Early Childhood Classrooms. Multilingual Matters. p.112-124.

Yamada-Rice, D. (2010) Beyond words: An enquiry into children’s home visual communication practices. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, Vol.10(3), p.341–363.