ABSTRACT: THE ART OF DESIGN
I watch episodes of Abstract when I am studying, to learn in the background, and there were a couple of episodes and creative mentors who I believe may be useful to my interactive web-project.

CAS HOLMAN

Toys giving kids control of a situation. Through her company Heroes Will Rise, she designs and manufactures tools for the imagination. These materials are manipulative parts and pieces which inspire constructive play, imaginative forms, and cooperative interactions between people. Abstract in their identity, these tool/toys inspire children and adults to imagine the origin and story of the toy as well as how to use it.

NERI OXMAN

Biomechanical engineering – love of the earth. Quotes about mother nature. the new generation of designers. if we arent designing for the future we arent doing good.

GAME DESIGN – BANDERSNATCH (NETFLIX)

Bandersnatch is a fantastic addition to Netflix’s Psychological series ‘Black Mirror’, released in December 2018. Bandersnatch is an interactive film about a young programmer who starts to question his reality, when he adapts a wacky fantasy novel into an old-school video game.

Fast Forward and Choices

Throughout Bandersnatch there are a number of ways to indicate the scenes where you are “not-present”, indicating when you’re back to the “present”, and how to indicate you need to make a current choice. This is a key consideration for me to take into account if I use any repetitive story telling. They made it clear that a scene had been repeated, or replayed, through resizing the picture. It was subtle, yet made it obvious what you had already seen and what you hadn’t. The picture shrunk down to the middle of the screen, and panned back to full when you had to pay attention. (This also dedicated )

When making a choice, the bottom of the screen scrolls up, effectively cropping the bottom of the picture, leaving a blank space for the minimalistic timer and choices the audience could make. The story gave between 2 and 4 choices per section. This simplicity and subtlety gives the audience the option they need without distracting and disengaging them from the story. One significant part of my research and testing will be to keep the university demographic engaged and interested, for long enough to teach them a lesson. This must be taught in a way that has them remember and maybe act.

Exit/ Skip Availability

One of the golden heuristics (practical methods of problem solving) is to ensure users always have a sense of where they are in a system or story is to have a fixed slide or tab showing a timeline- how long the story will take to complete . Before watching it you get a sense of how long you should be spending (listed at 1h 31m), but how do you know when you’re done? This is that subtle clue.

GAME DESIGN – UNTIL DAWN

Until dawn is a fantastic game overall, however there is one feature which I really enjoyed when playing it. This feature is found at the end, where all of your interactive choices are compiled into a well designed, choice map. (statistic). The map show what choices you could have made, and how it would have changed the story. You are then given the option to replay sections of the story, to create a ‘better’ ending.

HYPOTHESIS BRAINSTORM

DO UNIVERSITY STUDENTS USE ADULT COLOURING BOOKS

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AGED 19-25 OWN AT LEAST ONE COLOURING BOOK

STUDENTS ARE ANXIOUS BOUT CLIMATE CHANGE AND FEEL THAT THEY HAVE NO AGENCY TO MAKE A CHANGE.

UNIVERSTITY STUDENTS DO NOT FEEL THAT THEIR SMALL SUSTAINABLE ACTIONS MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE OVERALL CLIMATE ISSUE.

STUDENTS ARE MORE LIKELY TO VISIT A WEBSITE THAN TAKE OUT A BOOK TO LEARN ABOUT A TOPIC.

YOUNG ADULT ATTENTION SPANS ONLY FIT THE LENGTH OF A TIKTOK, AND NO LONGER.

YOUNG PEOPLE NEED A HIGH LEVEL OF STIMULATION TO KEEP THEIR ATTENTION ON A SUBJECT.

YOUNG ADULTS WILL TAKE MORE ACTION TOWARDS SOMETHING MEANINGFUL IF OTHERS WITNESS THEM DOING SO.