Digital storytelling in sex education. Avoiding the pitfalls of building a ‘haram’ website

This article discusses a participant design research project. The project aimed to provide information about sex and sexuality to groups considered to be vulnerable due to lack of knowledge and cultural barriers. The researchers worked with their students (from highly diverse cultural background) to gather interview material that in turn was used by these students to write ‘life stories’. Although not digital storytelling as it is usually defined, the group for whom the website was built did not author their own stories directly, participant design can be understood as a form of ‘digital storytelling light’. In regard of presenting information about sexuality in an acceptable manner, this combined design and research method worked well. The article provides examples from the interview material, the life stories and reactions posted on the websites that were built on internet for a for Moroccan and Turkish-Dutch youngsters, the intended audience.