ID.8: Co-Creating Visual Stories with Generative AI

Storytelling is an integral part of human culture and significantly impacts cognitive and socio-emotional development and connection. Despite the importance of interactive visual storytelling, the process of creating such content requires specialized skills and is labor-intensive. This article introduces ID.8, an open-source system designed for the co-creation of visual stories with generative AI. We focus on enabling an inclusive storytelling experience by simplifying the content creation process and allowing for customization. Our user evaluation confirms a generally positive user experience in domains such as enjoyment and exploration while highlighting areas for improvement, particularly in immersiveness, alignment, and partnership between the user and the AI system. Overall, our findings indicate promising possibilities for empowering people to create visual stories with generative AI. This work contributes a novel content authoring system, ID.8, and insights into the challenges and potential of using generative AI for multimedia content creation.