Introduction to New Media Interaction

Spaces of Interaction

Minority Report

Intelligent billboards

Aims of this lecture• Consider the implications

of a paradigm shift in media communications

• Considers five key elements of this paradigm

1. Historical view of interactivity

2. Modelling interactivity3. Interactivity from a design

perspective4. User interaction (UCD &

UXD)5. Ubiquitous interaction

Historical view of interactivity

from the old to the new

normal science

crisis

revolution

new science

A paradigm shift

Thomas Kuhn’s (1970)Structure of Science

Digital media

Crisis

Information revolution

•Digitization of print in 1980s

•Impact of Internet on ad revenue for newspapers and TV in 2008

Digitalization and

convergence of media

New media

A paradigm shiftStructure of Media?

Analogue media

Early computation had little to do with interaction

Paradigm ShiftDouglas Engelbart’s 1968 demonstration at

Augmentation Research Centre in San Francisco

Before Engelbart, human interaction with a computer was ‘laughable’

Link to videos of 1968 demonstrationand interview with Engelbart

User tools and collective intelligence• Douglas Engelbart 1968 Augmentation

Research

• Computers used to augment ‘collective IQ’

• Demonstrates user tools– the mouse – keyboard – hypertext – dynamic file linking– hierarchical structuring of text– videoconferencing

bootstrapping

The augmentation of the human intellect via interaction understood as a collective bootstrapping process

1969• Engelbart would go on to

hook up the second node of ARPANet in the following year and, during the next decade, would help to build an online community on that network, which has now become the Internet

(See the MIT New Media Reader, 2003).

What makes the Global Village is not the content or the message of the medium, but the medium itself

‘The medium shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and actions’

(McLuhan 1964 p. 9)

The medium is the me[a]ssage

Not necessarily about Harmony. Not just about glorious technological change.

Big social and political changes to the way we live, work and play

Wapping video

Changing Our Relations to the Media and the Economy

Modelling Interactivity

What is new about ‘new’ media?

• Differences between old media and new are greater user choice and control

Pavlik, 1998 New Media Technology: Cultural and Commercial Perspectives

Interactivitydefined

Interactivity• 1 : mutually or reciprocally active

• 2 : of, relating to, or being a two-way electronic communication system (as a telephone, cable television, or a computer) that involves a user's orders (as for information or merchandise) or responses (as to a poll)

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

interactivity

Interactivity is based on changing roles of

sender/receiver

simple model of linear communication

transmitter Receiver(s)

message

interactive communication

Transmitter

ReceiverReceiver(s)

Transmitter(s)

message

Interaction defined

Communicator A Communicator B

Communicator A

response

message

Response/reaction

Bretz (1983) cited in Hanssen, Jankowski and Etienne 1996 Contours of Multimedia

Three levels of interactionRafaeli (1988)

Bidirectionality (navigational, click-thru)

Reactiveness (dynamic database)

Responsiveness (face-to-face, email, artificial

intelligence)

Responsiveness

• ELIZA was written at MIT by Joseph Weizenbaum between 1964 to 1966.

• http://www-ai.ijs.si/eliza-cgi-bin/eliza_script

• Richard Wallace began development of Alice in 1995, while at Lehigh University

• http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=f5d922d97e345aa1

Meet Jen

“Jenn” at alaskaair.com

Clever(er) Bots

• See http://www.cleverbot.com/

Interactivity from a design perspective

What should interaction designers strive for?

• Tannenbaum argues that a good mix of

• interactivity • social presence• Like face-to-face, interpersonal

communication

Should interaction design strive to be interpersonal?

• How can designers make new media interpersonal?

• Immediacy of response• Non-sequential access to

information • Adaptability• High levels of feedback

Assumptions about face-to-face

communication

Assumptions about face-to-face

communication• Steve Jones (1999)

• CMC has become a race to provide the most ‘lifelike’ interaction possible

• problems with face-to-face interaction

It does not necessarily break down barriers of communication….

Should all new media be interactive?

‘…from the perspective of functionality, it is not necessary to always strive for a high degree of interactivity’

Hanssen, Jankowski and Etienne, Contours of Multimedia 1996

User Research

• What do users consider interactivity to be?

• Control over sequence

• Greater number of choices

• However,

• Too much control experienced negatively

• Decision-making obstacle to use

• A degree of linearity aided user orientation

User Interaction

Human Computer Interaction (HCI)

• HCI is about the design of computers, but ‘from the user's point of view’

• In Draper and Norman (eds) "User-Centered System Design" 1986 p. 2

• HCI uses cognitive psychology frameworks

Donald Norman

Three Paradigms Within HCI

1. Ergonomic 2. Cognitive

2nd paradigm HCI

2nd paradigm HCI and Mental Models

Cognitive Walkthrough

• Making a Fried Breakfast

• Write down a step-by-step (walk-through) of what you do to make breakfast

Making Breakfast

Get frying pan ready

Heat fat in pan

Break egg(s)

Fry eggs in pan

Make toast and butter

Put on a plate and eat

BreakfastMaker. version 3.5

User Centred Design

User Testing

User Centred Design

Paper Prototypes

Videos on paper prototypes

Paper Prototype

Paper Prototype IMP06 HR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykJ60H4Qkvg&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WbxisFDYk4&feature=related

See Bill Verplank on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3rxCLhzmXY

3rd Paradigm HCI

• From Usability to User Experience (UXD)• Use and Social Context• Ethnography as design method• Emotions, Feelings and Affect• Task versus Non-Task• Ubicomp/Pervasive Computing

Ubiquitous Interaction

See GreenfieldLectures On Everyware

See Adam Greenfield on Youtubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrbGBhzZPic

Challenges for Interaction DesignSee Dan Saffer, Designing for Interaction (2010) Berkeley: New Riders (Greenfield interviewed in chapter nine)

• “When a room, or a lamppost, or a running shoe is, in and of itself, an information gathering, processing, storage, and transmission device, it's crazy to assume that the keyboard or the traditional GUI makes sense as a channel for interaction “

A Multiplicity of Interactions

The Space of Interaction• Interaction design will need to

consider “multiplicity.”• “Instead of the neatly

circumscribed space of interaction between a single user and his or her PC, his or her mobile, we're going to have to contend with a situation in which multiple users are potentially interacting with multiple technical systems in a given space at a given moment.”

Quality of User Experience

• “Networked information-processing devices are going to be deployed everywhere in the built environment rather strongly implies the inadequacy of the traditional user interface modalities… most particularly keyboards and keypads.”

• The future is interaction based on voice, gestural and pervasive interfaces