Capstone Theoretical Stuff

Capstone, Games, Projects, Readings No Responses »
Feb 122010

Design is a balancing act, and one of the things I find merit in tossing into it is a strong understanding of theory and literature. It helps to recognize and acknowledge your values in the design process so that they can be made explicit to yourself and all other stakeholders.

That being said, I now present a brief overview of my capstone project and some of the theoretical stuff informing it.

INTRO
This project seeks to design a system that preserve the experience of virtual worlds, in this case World of Warcraft outside of the through the use of screenshots and metadata. The design aims to give players some out-of-game representation of their experience Continue reading »

Posted by Chad at 2:37 pm Tagged with: , , , ,

Critical Analysis Pre-Writing

Critique, Design, Games, Human-Centered, Projects No Responses »
Dec 062009

In this post, I am attempting to make some sense of my argument for a paper I am planning to write.  For this paper I am doing a critical analysis of World of Warcraft’s FigurePrints service.

In making my thoughts and assumptions explicit, I have very strong opinions about how World of Warcraft favors certain playstyles over others.  I feel that the design and “loudest” player groups have created a game culture that favors ambition, aggressiveness, and a focus on certain achievements over others.  (Warning: The following sentence might be highly subjective or half-baked).  High level or “epic/elite” activities, raiding, or player vs. player are seen as “better” than any-level activities like exploration, pet collection, or crafting.  While these any-level activities are not seen as unimportant, they don’t have near the prestige of the other activities, and are often treated as a means to an end. Continue reading »

Posted by Chad at 2:38 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Phenomenological Reading of WoW Machinima

Critique, Design Philosophy, Games, Projects No Responses »
Oct 312009

For my Interaction Culture class I decided to a close phenomological reading of a bit of machinima made from WoW clips set to the song “Here Without You” by 3 Doors Down. It has been an interesting journey. It is incredible to think that some clips from World of Warcraft set to a cheesy late 90′s love-rock song could make me misty-eyed. I dare you to watch this video multiple times and not be moved at least a little bit. Continue reading »

Posted by Chad at 10:48 pm Tagged with: , , , ,

Interpreting Interaction Design

Readings No Responses »
Sep 172009

As I was reading Verbalising the Visual, I came across a passage that seemed to set of a big, fun, messy string of thoughts about the ways things are interpreted.  Clarke states:

It is sometimes thought that interpreting images of functional artefacts, such as a food processor or digital camera, is easier than interpreting works of fine art, be they painted, sculpted, photographed, or otherwise. At least the utilitarian, functional dimensions of the artefacts might provide a common basis for understanding. Without any comparable basis in the practical, fine art artefacts are judged to be far less contained.

Are the words functional, utilitarian, and practical problematic here?  And what do these descriptions mean for interaction design, where all of those are balled into one?  Continue reading »

Posted by Chad at 3:58 am Tagged with: , , ,

Human-Centered vs. User-Centered

Design, Design Philosophy, Human-Centered, Opinion 1 Response »
May 182009

After attending CHI 2009 I gained some perspective. It seems that the industry that I am about to dive into, full of youthful exuberance and naivety, has grossly understated the value and potential of HCI. The field of HCI seems to still be very focused on user-centered design, and sometimes uses the phrase human-centered design interchangeably. I don’t feel that human-centered design is user-centered design. This is not a new topic, as it has already seen some play in Interactions Magazine among other places. In what follows I will explain what I feel the difference is and why it is important to note it. Continue reading »

Posted by Chad at 10:47 am Tagged with: , ,

Literature, Film, and HCI

Critique, Design Philosophy, Readings No Responses »
Mar 042009

After reading this paper, Interaction Criticism: A Proposal and Framework for a New Discipline of HCI by Jeff and Shaowen Bardzell, I came away with several insights to add to my personal design philosophy.

In the paper the authors claim that the HCI design process is missing an integral final step, the step of interaction criticism. There are many other art and design oriented fields, such as film and literature, which already have a culture of expert critics. Continue reading »

Posted by Chad at 2:01 pm Tagged with: , ,
© 2012 People First Design Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha