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  Posted: March 23rd, 2008, 10:48am PDT by jasonrbailey

  My wife was browsing the IKEA website this morning and found this advertisement. It makes use of immersion and both representational and abstract 3D space. It uses the tunnel effect allowing you to move forward or backward in space, without ever getting lost. I think it is very effective in terms of designing a user experience. I particularly enjoy the use of sound to describe the transitions between locations. Photos probably would have worked to describe these products, perhaps a video would have been more effective then a photo, but having this dimensional interface caused me to interact and feel like I was part of an experience.

  I have been contemplating the effect of 3D space on participation and narrative a lot. The research I did last semester on Blogs and serious games focused on participatory media and how people are expecting more and more to play a role in the media they are exposed to. I think the use of 3D will play a larger role in media as this trend continues and we expect to have more involvement in the media experience. Here’s why.

  When you put a user in a 3D environment or give them a 3D object, the assumption is that they must interact to fully experience this thing. Because the object has limitless vantage points of which you are currently experiencing only one, you need to engage to have a full experience. Allowing the user to activate the object or space plays on their natural curiosity and desire to explore. Once you have engaged the user in the decision making process they now have a larger stake in the experience. Of course the hard part is designing an experience worth engaging in.

  To me the big difference here is between witnessing an experience and having an experience. Of course this IKEA example is still a very linear experience. You can only decide to move forward or backwards (not that different from fast forward and rewind). If you were to design an environment in which the user could move in any direction they choose you would lose some control over what they see and how they experience things but increase the sense that they are in control of the experience.

  On a side note, did this ad remind anybody else of the IKEA scene in Fight Club? Which happens to be my wife Erin’s favorite movie.

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  Posted: March 22nd, 2008, 8:35pm PDT by jasonrbailey

  Interesting article on the importance of perception in assessment of reality. The research involves creating an artificial out of body experience and examining what brain functions are responsible for making us feel like our bodies belong to us. According to Dr Henrik Ehrsson, research leader in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institute:

  “‘This is essentially a means of projecting yourself, a form of teleportation,’ said Dr Ehrsson. ‘If we can project people into a virtual character, so they feel and respond as if they were really in a virtual version of themselves, just imagine the implications.’”

  More on this research here.

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  Posted: March 15th, 2008, 8:14am PDT by jasonrbailey

  

  I accidentally got off at the Copley T-Stop on Thursday and decided to kill some time at the Boston Public Library. I discovered an interesting exhibit of birds eye view maps from the late 1800’s early 1900’s. What fascinated me about these maps is how much they were able to communicate about the character of the regions they depicted. Unlike traditional maps which adopt the perspective of looking straight down at the ground, reducing architecturally rich buildings into simple squares, these maps described the spatial relationship between buildings, roads and parks in a way that better communicated a sense of developing community.

  Granted, If I had to navigate a burgeoning mill town like Waltham or lowell circa late 1800’s I would opt for a traditional map with a flat and efficient representation of the streets and buildings. But this all got me thinking about what gets lost in the process of visual reduction for purposes of iconic or symbolic representation.

  I think there is a process of transcoding which occurs when visual information is simplified for information graphics such as maps. For example, the Boston Subway map is about as abstract and efficient a representation of Boston as you can get; an entire city reduced to 4 colored lines. On the opposite side of the spectrum would be experiencing the city in person on foot.

  By reducing the entire experience of a city into 4 colored lines you lose anything resembling the regions character or the character of it’s people. Of course you gain an enormous level of clarity when it comes to navigating the subway (although, I should remind you that I did get off at Copley by accident). I think these birds eye view maps were are a interesting representation intersection between symbolic and realistic representation of space. The exhibit is free so check it out if you get a chance.

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  Posted: March 9th, 2008, 12:14pm PDT by jasonrbailey

  
  Anyone want to make one of these with me? I think we could put it together pretty quickly. It would be a fun way to interact with our future projects.

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  Posted: March 5th, 2008, 6:32pm PST by jasonrbailey

  
  My brother sent me a link to this video, it gets more interesting as it goes along. You can download the software free here. You may want to wait until spring break though, its a little addictive.

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  Posted: March 2nd, 2008, 12:07pm PST by jasonrbailey

  
  This video looks at elements of persuasion in collaborative art websites. It lists 5 common elements to persuading people to collaborate:

  Visable Canvas
  Democracy
  Collaboration
  Reward
  Preservation

  The two sites he is mentioning in the video are DrawBall and SwarmSketch. Both of these sites are interesting to me in terms of participation, engagement, collaboration and experience.