Domtar, the largest paper manufacturer in North America, has an ongoing paper advocacy campaign called PAPERbeause. This campaign focuses on how paper is purposeful, personal, sustainable and a more effective way to learn and communicate. But as the shift to digital has become more prevalent in schools worldwide, recent scientific research data indicates the elimination of handwriting can negatively impact the cognitive development of children. This data took us down a path in search of a way to help increase awareness around the benefits of handwriting. And also to uncover a way to encourage children to practice handwriting so that they receive the neurological and educational benefits.

Our entry is perfect for the Creative Data category because data is at the core of every stage of this concept.

1. Scientific data proved the benefits of handwriting

2. A data driven insight was uncovered that handwriting gives the brain a workout

3. We created the world’s first handwriting tracker that converts raw handwriting strokes into usable metrics to encourage children to put pen to paper.

4. Our application is now being used in scientific studies at Indiana University to uncover more neurological data on how handwriting affects the brain.

We tested our application in an elementary school to see how students responded to the ability to track and monitor handwriting performance. The response was overwhelmingly positive. One teacher commented that she couldn’t get the students to stop writing. And the data reinforced that. We compared handwriting exercises the students had previously completed to exercises they completed while using our handwriting tracker. Handwritten response to open ended questions where students could write as much as they wanted increased their word count on average 32% while using the handwriting tracker. That’s a clear behavioral change spurred by the ability to track and monitor handwriting performance.

Thanks to iTunes metrics, we see that users worldwide are downloading the application, thus receiving the same encouragement to improve their memory, thought processes and fine motor skills by putting pen to paper.

To help raise awareness of the benefits of handwriting we promoted our case study on social media geotargeting parents and educators. Our video exceeded Facebook sponsored page post CTR benchmark by more than 300%. Domtar’s Facebook also saw a 20% increase in page likes.

Our application also caught the eye of Dr. Karin James, leading Neuroscientist at Indiana University. She’s at the forefront of research to study how handwriting affects the brain. We’re proud to say that she’s incorporated the Project Learning Curve application into her ongoing research to further the understanding of the cognitive benefits of handwriting. Which is somewhat of an ironic twist considering it was actually her research data that helped inspire the concept of the Project Learning Curve application. And now it is our application that will be helping her team gather more data on how handwriting affects the brain.

Because our data driven insight was that handwriting gives the brain a workout, we in essence were trying to encourage people to perform a particular kind of exercise that involved putting pen to paper—handwriting. So we looked around at the various incentive-based exercise programs, technologies and other motivations that encouraged people to perform all types of exercises.

We noticed the most successful motivational tools simply give you more insight into your activity and performance, offer encouragement through monitoring and allow you to set goals.

So we worked to develop an application that could provide similar metrics for handwriting. But how could we do it? Once we discovered digital ink pen technology, our concept began to take shape. The technology was able to capture raw handwriting data but we needed to take things to the next level.

Our application developers explored all types of measurements we could achieve by analyzing the digitally converted ink stroke data. We determined our most useful and encouraging metrics were time, calculated distance of combined strokes, numerical rankings by time and distance of each synced pen, achievement medals based on rankings, and distance goals like a soccer field to visually put the measurement into perspective. Added capabilities were the ability to store completed pages within the application and the ability to play and rewind handwritten exercises.

Thus the world’s first handwriting tracker was born. Giving users insight into the activity and performance of handwriting, offering encouragement and allowing people to set goals using metrics derived from raw handwriting strokes.

Every aspect of this creative was powered by data. First and foremost, scientific research data provided the background and support, proving the neurological and educational benefits of handwriting. From there our data driven insight was uncovered, making the creative association that handwriting gives the brain a workout. And without the creative interpretation of raw handwriting data to create never before calculated metrics, the world’s first handwriting tracker wouldn’t exist today. And as a result, users wouldn’t have an application that gives them insight into their handwriting activity and performance, offer encouragement through monitoring, allowing them to set handwriting achievement goals. All while improving their memory, thought processes and fine motor skills by putting pen to paper.