What we learned from testing Pictomix’s first Ulysses prototype across Europe
A 13-metre-long story, a Cyclops, a ship and no conventional text: Pictomix’s first prototype travelled through prisons, language classrooms and inclusion programmes to find out how adults read images together.
A story that unfolds across the room
What happens when a book is so long that a group has to keep adding tables as it unfolds? This was one of the first reactions to Pictomix’s prototype based on Ulysses and the Cyclops. Designed as a leporello - an accordion-fold book - the visual narrative turns the ancient myth into a continuous fresco made primarily from pictograms.
The prototype is part of Pictomix, an Erasmus+ project developing accessible visual storytelling resources for adults who may have limited literacy, be learning a new language, or have specific communication and accessibility needs. Rather than waiting until the resource was finished, the partnership decided to test it early. We wanted to understand not only whether people liked it, but how they actually made meaning from it.
Testing the same story in very different settings
- Between January and May 2026, the prototype was explored by the five Pictomix partner organisations. The documented activities represent at least 13 sessions and 68 learner participations, with one additional group still to be quantified. The settings and participants were deliberately diverse:
- beginner and mixed-level English and Dutch classes in Belgian prisons;
- adult asylum seekers with emerging oral French and little or no experience of reading and writing;
- deaf adults with very different educational backgrounds and levels of Italian Sign Language;
- low-A1 migrant learners exploring visual comprehension;
- a multilingual inclusion group working with Arabic, Bambara, Pashto, Soninke, Ukrainian and Turkish.
Some participants already knew Greek mythology. Most did not. Some were familiar with illustrated stories, while others considered a “real book” to be an object made primarily of written text. This diversity was not an obstacle to the evaluation; it was precisely what made the prototype useful to test.
Curiosity came first
Across the sessions, the unusual format created immediate curiosity. At the Istituto dei Sordi di Torino, participants were surprised by “such a long book”. In the Langues Plurielles workshop, the group enjoyed unfolding the fresco and extending it across a growing line of classroom tables. One participant compared its sequence of black-and-white images to cinema.
The story also generated emotional reactions. In one prison class, a learner visibly gasped when the Cyclops ate two of Ulysses’ companions. Elsewhere, participants laughed at the visual humour or wanted to return to the object, photograph it and inspect the compact summary on its back cover.
Most importantly, the images helped learners remember the sequence and attempt a retelling. Stronger speakers often began the narration, while others contributed words, gestures, signs or ideas in different languages. The fresco became a shared surface for negotiation: What is happening here? What might happen next? Does everyone agree?
A pictogram is not a universal language
The tests also challenged one of the easiest assumptions to make about visual communication: images do not explain themselves in exactly the same way to everyone. All five partner organisations considered the length of the story and its proposed A1 language level broadly appropriate. However, only three of the five felt that the pictograms were consistently easy for their learners to understand.
Concrete elements such as the ship, sheep and food were often recognised quickly. Abstract ideas, emotions and conventions borrowed from comics required more support. Footprints, the flashes around a sword, the scene in which the Cyclops eats two companions, and the moment when he feels the sheep as they leave the cave were among the difficult passages. Even punctuation marks or facial expressions can rely on cultural knowledge that is not shared by every reader.
This does not mean that pictograms failed. It means that visual literacy, like written literacy, is learned and mediated. Gestures, mime, role play, peer discussion and simple oral reformulation were often what turned an ambiguous image into a meaningful part of the story.
The facilitator is part of the resource
The clearest lesson was that the leporello works best as a flexible teaching tool, not as a self-explanatory object. The most successful workshops prepared learners before asking them to retell the whole myth. Facilitators introduced a small amount of vocabulary, showed maps or images of Greece, discussed heroes from participants’ own cultures, or first explored what a pictogram and a story can be.
Different levels called for different expectations. Complete beginners might participate through gesture, isolated words and collective choices. A1 learners could build short sentences. More advanced learners could enrich the narrative, write their own version or imagine what happened to Ulysses next. In one workshop, the fresco led to a second session devoted to voice recording, prosody, sound effects and a collective video.
The prototype did not simply test whether learners understood a story. It helped us observe the conditions that make visual storytelling inclusive.
How the tests will change Pictomix
Evaluation is useful only if it changes what comes next. The partnership has identified a first set of practical improvements for Ulysses and for the other Pictomix frescoes now in development:
- revise the pictograms and scenes that caused repeated misunderstandings;
- make the relationship between the fresco, booklet and activity materials clearer;
- provide short facilitator guidance for workshops of different lengths;
- create vocabulary cards and images that learners can put back into sequence;
- separate questions about overall comprehension from more detailed questions;
- develop audio, flashcards, memory games and narrative reconstruction activities;
- offer differentiated pathways for pre-A1, A1 and more advanced learners.
- The black-and-white graphic identity will remain an important part of the project. Several educators felt that its simplicity left space for imagination and personal interpretation. At the same time, the partnership will consider whether colour could be used selectively as an optional aid for comprehension or orientation.
Building through observation, not assumption
Pictomix is creating resources for highly diverse audiences. That makes co-creation and testing essential. A symbol that appears obvious to a designer may be opaque to a learner. A famous European myth may be entirely new to a group, yet still create connections with warriors, heroes and legends from other cultures. A learner who cannot retell the story in conventional sentences may nevertheless understand it deeply and express that understanding through gesture, signs, sound or another language.
The Ulysses prototype gave the partnership more than a list of corrections. It showed the potential of a long visual narrative to create a temporary community around a story. People pointed, questioned, disagreed, laughed, helped one another and gradually built meaning together.
This first testing phase is now informing the next Pictomix frescoes and the educational resources that will accompany them. We will continue documenting this process as the project moves from prototype to a complete, accessible collection.