Investigating Interaction

Each group in class will investigate one of the following short, web-based multimedia presentations. This exercise helps you to understand the different elements that contribute to an interactive experience. And it should hone your appreciation (prior to your own scripting of interactivity!) of those elements that contribute to a rewarding interactive interlude for your reader/viewer/actor.

Two parts:

1) Try to use some of the concepts Garrand introduces in this week's reading to structure your investigation. For example, think about:-

• the type of reader/viewer input anticipated/required
• the role the reader/viewer plays. To what extent does the reader/viewer have to discover how to explore the production? How active does the reader/viewer/actor need to be?
• the choices (the order in which they appear, the number of choices, the result of those choices) How over or under)whelming are those choices? What do the choices add to/subtract from the 'meaning' of the piece?
• the purpose(s) of the choices
• the devices (icons, menus) that create/facilitate interactivity in the piece you are exploring
• design elements such as the interface design, any guiding metaphor you discern, etc.

2) Now try to examines the pleasures (or otherwise) of your multimedia experience with your piece. How rewarding was your reading/viewing/acting? How thought-provoking? To hat extent were you entertained? Informed? What were the high points and why? Where were the longeurs and why?

Remember two critical lines from Garrand

Just because you can make a choice doens't mean it's an interesting one

A well-designed interactive device will not pull us out of the dream state of storytelling or disrupt our train of thought as we pursue information.

A Selection of Web-based Multimedia

Arts and Culture
Go to the Immerse interactive essays and explore at least two or three (or more - they're quite short)

Villa Mt. Eden: A Napa Valley Winery

Arafat Says He's Ready for Marathon Talks with Israel (from CNN.com)
Stay with this story alone, and investigate the video, resources, etc. that are available to complement the news.

Magic, Illusion and Detection in turn of the Century America
An unusually interactive history site

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Weepers
An interactive multimedia poem