HelloU Director Helen Featured in the National Year of Reading 2026

We’re delighted to share that HelloU Director Helen has been featured by Go All In as part of the National Year of Reading 2026, sharing her personal relationship with reading and how creativity and technology can open up new ways for people to discover stories.

In Helen’s Story, she talks openly about not always thinking of herself as a reader, how her relationship with reading has changed over time, and the important role Hull Libraries has played in that journey.

But there’s another part of Helen’s story that connects particularly closely with what we do at HelloU: the idea that stories don’t only live in books.

For us, that opens up a much bigger conversation about how people learn, how they engage with information and how creative technology can help make stories accessible to more people.

Not Everyone Experiences a Story in the Same Way

When we think about reading, it's easy to picture words printed on a page.

But people experience and process information in different ways.

For multimodal learners, understanding can be supported by combining different forms of communication — words, images, audio, video, interaction, physical environments and digital experiences.

A written story might be one part of the experience rather than the whole experience.

Someone might first become interested because of an image.

Another person might connect with a story by hearing it.

Someone else might need to interact, explore or see something happening before they want to find out more.

And that's where things become really interesting.

Because rather than asking people to engage with stories in one prescribed way, technology gives us the opportunity to create multiple ways into the same story.

StoryCoin: Turning Places and Objects Into Storytelling Experiences

This thinking sits behind StoryCoin, one of the creative technology concepts developed through HelloU.

StoryCoin explores how physical objects and places can become gateways to digital stories.

Imagine picking up an object, visiting a location or discovering something in your community and using your phone to unlock another layer of information.

That experience could include:

• written storytelling;

• photographs and illustration;

• audio and spoken-word content;

• video;

• animation;

• augmented reality;

• interactive elements;

• archive material;

• or different combinations of these formats.
  

The important part isn't using technology simply because it's available.

It's about asking:

How can we give more people a way into this story?

Designing Stories for Multimodal Learners

This is where the idea of multimodal learning becomes especially relevant.

When information is presented through complementary formats, people can engage with it in ways that work for the context and for them.

For example, imagine exploring the story of a historic location.

One person might want to read about it.

Another might prefer to hear somebody tell the story.

A child might engage first with an animation or augmented reality experience.

Someone else might be drawn in by historical photographs and then decide to read further.

None of those routes has to be the "correct" one.

They can all lead towards the same thing: curiosity.

And curiosity is often what encourages us to go explore further.

Reading Can Begin With Curiosity

One of the most interesting ideas to come from Helen's Go All In story is that perhaps we shouldn't always begin by asking: “What should people read?”

Sometimes a better question might be: “What will make someone want to know more?”

That could be football.

Gaming.

Music.

Local history.

Fashion.

Art.

Technology.

A building they've walked past hundreds of times.

Or a story about somebody who once lived on their street.

Once curiosity has been sparked, reading becomes part of a much wider process of discovery.

You might watch something, listen to something, interact with something — and then want to read more about it.

Where Creativity, Technology and Storytelling Meet

At HelloU, this intersection between creativity, storytelling and technology is something we're particularly interested in exploring.

Emerging technologies such as augmented reality and artificial intelligence give creators new tools, but the technology itself shouldn't be the destination.

The human experience still matters most.

Does it make someone curious?

Does it help them understand?

Does it give them another way to participate?

Does it help a story reach somebody who might not have engaged with it otherwise?

Does it encourage them to explore further?

Those are much more interesting questions than simply asking what the latest technology can do.

Stories Don't Only Live in Books

The National Year of Reading 2026 is a brilliant opportunity to celebrate books and reading, but also to think more widely about where reading begins.

Stories can live in books.

But they can also live in buildings, objects, photographs, voices, memories, communities and digital experiences.

And when we combine those things thoughtfully, we can create new routes into reading and discovery for different audiences — including multimodal learners.

That's something we're excited to continue exploring through StoryCoin and our work at HelloU.

Read Helen's Story

Helen's full story explores her relationship with reading, her experiences with Hull Libraries, StoryCoin, creativity and experimenting with AI and storytelling you can read it here