---
title: Picture stories we understand and like
date: 2026-11-07T21:41:08+08:00
categories:
  - education
  - llms
description: I asked students to create wordless picture stories, explain and rank others' work, then measured uniqueness, understanding, and preference. The results show original stories were often more interesting, but not always easier to understand.
tags: [ai-in-education, ai-creativity, data-analysis]
---

Students of [my course](https://tds.s-anand.net/) were given an [assignment](https://exam.sanand.workers.dev/tds-2026-09-p1#hq-trading-picture-story).

1. Submit a picture story (no words) that others will understand and like.
2. Explain others' picture stories and rank them.

[Here are the results](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/).

Firstly, why this exercise? Because it teaches three skills I believe are important in the AI era:

1. Creating **unique** content
2. Communicating with **clarity**
3. **Marketing** your ideas

This is exactly what they were evaluated on.

1. **Uniqueness**: How similar was their story to others'?
2. **Understanding**: How well did others understand their story?
3. **Preference**: How much did others prefer their story over others'?

Here are some stories I enjoyed. Click for details.

[![](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/gallery/P292.webp)](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?tab=patterns#story=P292)

[![](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/gallery/P089.webp)](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?tab=patterns#story=P089)

[![](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/gallery/P073.webp)](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?tab=patterns#story=P073)

---

One interesting relationship is uniqueness and preference. The two are negatively correlated. I'm not sure why.

[![](https://files.s-anand.net/images/2026-11-07-picture-stories-uniqueness-vs-preference.avif)](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?tab=patterns).

The least unique stories were about these three patterns - and there were _so many_ of them!

- [A crow drinking water from a pitcher](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?sort=uniqueness-asc#story=P124)
- [A child adopting a dog/bird](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?sort=uniqueness-asc#story=P006)
- [An older man helping a child with a kite](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?sort=uniqueness-asc#story=P012)
- [A child/robot watering a plant](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?sort=uniqueness-asc#story=P337)

If people can't come up with original stories easily, I guess there's a concrete skill to learn _and_ a way to differentiate capability.

The most unique stories _were_ reasonably interesting. They included:

- [An unwanted gift](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?sort=uniqueness-desc#story=P292)
- [Cell notifications at the moon landing](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?sort=uniqueness-desc#story=P133)
- [The growth of AI](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?sort=uniqueness-desc#story=P295)
- [Robots replacing humans](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?sort=uniqueness-desc#story=P260)

The top scoring story was fairly unique, too: [The Bhagavad Gita](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/#story=P253).

I was surprised at how interesting some of the _low_ scoring stories were. For example, I thought this [photographer deletes a baby panda photo to protect it](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?sort=understanding-asc#story=P089) was really powerful.

[![](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/gallery/P089.webp)](https://files.s-anand.net/pages/tds-2026-09-p1-q7-picture-stories/?sort=understanding-asc#story=P089)

It ranked low on understanding (3 people completely mis-understood the story but since they labelled the story "A thirsty crow" or "A steam engine..." I think these were errors or junk). It ranked only ranked mid-way on preference.

So, maybe there's more to learn than what I was measuring.

Still, it was good to know that we can teach and evaluate useful skills even when students can use AI and collaborate.