What's the Game?

The Open Internet media; its Friends and Enemies

Introduction: In this chapter I consider website design in relation to the general information and marketing-media services found there. As an 'early internet adopter' I think the fact that websites are offering 'services' is something that's getting confused lost, forgotten or even disregarded by some designers. The open and 'broad-cast' nature of the internet, i.e. the (seemingly) ever-growing 'user/developers' world-wide 'online' population is expressed in one simplistic definition - “...a worldwide publicly accessible system of interconnected computer networks”It's now also an interactive and multimedia system with huge humaninterest and potential to grow. How generally accessible it is to the worlds population in is a matter for debate. Here, I maintain the best practices of 'user-based' design need tobe clearly delineated and applied 'a priori' as well as monitored by the likes of the internet Watch Foundation (http://www.iwf.org.uk/).

What makes 'good' interactive-media design?

The basics of user-based design are roughly:

Fig 1.1. Consider some innovation or new solution to 'old' problem -

(identify key user areas)2. Find out as much as possible about the problem or situation

(research & analysis)3. Formulate a 'brief' or new purpose 4. Developing an 'idea' of a solution or solutions by

'brainstorming'5. Modeling and prototyping solution or solutions6. Testing and evaluating successes and returning problems

discovered (identify areas for improvement)

One important aspect of Fig 1. is its review and feedback cycle. In reality this may occur at any stage but most likely are stages 1- 3 and 1- 6. These 'feedback' until designers have reached

review

feedba

ck

something stable or acceptable, but with (as yet) unproven more general usability. The final test is the new product's release tocustomers or 'user-developer' market. Research, analysis and evaluating processes are based initially on user group 'feedback' for both the long and short term considerations. The current basic stages for MR are: - (Note: - similarity to user-based design loop)

1. Define clearly the problem and boundaries of focus for research

2. Plan approaches and methods for valid data collection3. Research implementation and data collection4. Analyse and evaluate data5. Retest problems found6. Report and write up results for all concerned.

Today market research approaches used by consumer/user focused companies (relate closely to media of the same name) are: -

Standard mail, e-mail Published-paper or website Land-line, Mobile network, MMS & SMS texts, Personal contact (home, office or in street) Focus Group (interactive) internet ('Blogs', Social Network sites )

(Sources: Von Stamm,'03) MR data collection techniques used within these approaches fall into two basic areas - the quantitative and qualitative data. These seem to relate equally to objectivity and subjectivity viewswithin scientific data collection.Post WWII MR businesses 'outsourced' it to research agencies. Thisresulted in problems of data selection or filtration and subsequent misinterpretation of results that required a more specialized review and interpretation. The alternative was for businesses to adopt 'in-house' market research. The drawbacks hererelates directly to the independence, training/knowledge and ability of the in-house researchers to collect and interpret valid

results that may not be what a company wants to hear so ultimatelyget ignored. So - 'A better solution is for the entire integrated solutions team to be a part of the market research effort.'(Von Stamm,'03) Ultimately designers involved in researching radical innovations are aiming at predicting where the next user/market 'pull' will beand getting there first. This is the value of user-based design and comes from knowing as much about user's sociocultural base as possible, i.e. 'Demographic' - the who, where and what of: -

User geographic location What users are like as people – gender, status and self

image/psycho-graphic factors – they're likes and dislikes;what's coming 'up' or going 'out' of fashion.

What people do related or unrelated to their product – behavioral factors

Age, income and demographic factors.This is MR targeting those who are in the 'innovators', 'early adopters' and 'early majority' of the product diffusion curve: Fig3. These 'aficionados' may have already entered into thinking creatively about product changes and improvements. This is in itself a radical change from the conventional and social research questionnaire where market research selects the 'as-large-as-possible' random potential market sample to investigate, however, contributions from a few specialist users get lost.

The major on-line media innovation of the 20th Century was, of course, Sir Tim Berners-Lee's(et al) '89/'90 WorldWideWeb – now renamed 'Nexus' to differentiate it from the WorldWideWeb browser (soon replaced by 'Mosaic'). The one major web browser design change was that of 'e-money' or electronic funds transfer (EFT). Banking & buying/selling online really only established when Netscape 1.0 offered major security improvement with 'SSL encryption' late in '94. Fundamental browser design changes followthe innovation life-cycle and diffusion diagrams as in figs 2. & 3.

Fig 2. Spiral of Innovation Fig 3. Diffusion

curve

(Source: OU)

The fundamentals of 'innovation' remain: Major social changes (like other innovations/inventions); Forces and needs stimulate a rethink during 'maturity' as a

reduction or flat-lining in use, (visits/'Hits' etc). Another concept central to 'use-based' design (applied in fig 4. to internet media) is the website service as a 'total product': -

Fig.4 . Total product or service:

Set-up & function

Product 'package' (On-line)appearance After accessibility Brand Core launch name Service or services Product Features Quality Styling

Reliability

(Source: OU)

Promotion and service of web-site product final cost are only small initial concerns and beyond those in blue.In summary, sales and market orientated companies have been basedon: 'make what you can sell'. This new philosophy was to convince potential customers their product was what they needed. However, after the end of the second world war marketing itself has undergone redesign with product orientation based on: 'make the product do more'. So companies have long used market research especially when involved in a 'market push' or 'trend-setting' something new and 'fashionable'. Today a marketing organization will invite all manner of special interest user group contributions as well as lager scale consumer sample data.While clearly the internet is all about making ICT products and service developments 'do more', a basic last century marketing change has yet to occur in most current web-site based marketing and sales. This is almost certainly a result of: -

1. Specialized and private (Intranet) basis of early website activities.

2. Limitations of early program languages and programming;3. Early rush on-line of established companies and 'start-ups'

during '.com Bubble'

For me there's also a sense the 'open' in 'open internet' means freedom to ignore a country's laws and commercially accepted trading norms and values.

User feedback seems to me to have been something unknown to website designers until recently. If it occurred at all was based crudely on site 'Hits' or 'Cookie' data. Even today (early 2013) its public funded websites and some on-line marketing and sales websites, that maintain regular site updates, who are making MR a priority.

T hree basic types in the general ' spectrum ' of current media used in website design:

1. Finished or 'predetermined media' like published texts, images, films, audio, video and 'read-only' software.

2. Opinion based or 'active media' are those of news and current-affairs, critical reviews, marketing and advertising media.

3. Interactive media divides roughly into two distinct areas, asbetween:i. person with technology.

This includes adaptive technology, where there is some simple 'options' or more complex interrogative element in the design thatchanges outcomes according to user decisions or reactions.

ii. person via technology with person.This latter can occur within active media like the 'Talk Show'; political 'head-to- head' as well as 'hard-sell' marketing, that uses techniques like NLP. One of the most disturbing aspects of ii. and all interpersonal media and marketing has long been emotional manipulation and user deception, then entrapment. There is also the issue of this type of media being used anonymously for mischief as well as criminal activities - now called in the media 'Trolling'.The internet is now somewhere all kinds of media and multimedia have been tried, tested. Initially, Hotmail and Yahoo opened publicly accessible e-mail interactive letter document communication (with data file 'attachments') known as POP e-mail. Chat-boxes and SMS/MMS messaging were soon included. The most recent is Twitter's reducedtext messaging. (NB. When e-mail and messaging became equal in law to the written word a legal mark of approval and caution came with these 'active'text based media and their users).One of the recent developments of multimedia website platforms (e.g. Face Book, Myspace, Youtube and their like) is the inclusionof interactive media either as comments or ratings or messaging. Online computer games have created a new internet gaming media by the injection of the most basic elements as individual and group interaction. Not only (as in 3i.)'playing-the-machine' as in Chessor Card games but also in strategic fantasy and simulated situations between groups of individual 'Avatars'. One very recentdevelopment here is that of emotionally expressive opponent Avatars within an e-game. One such game is the Xbox 360's L.A.Noire. There are also the real-time strategic situations as when an 'Ebay' auction ends or posting some 'Best/Most Viewed' news visuals on 'Youtube' or 'Twitter'. CBL Computer Based Learning(a.k.a. e-learning) as found on 'Moodle' also uses 'game play' as an incentive to drive basic skills learning.

User-based web- site design initial paper prototyping styles

In many ways the on-line 'web-ring' or video conferencing environment lends itself to a working 'focus group', individually or as a group. It is also the best MR technique suited to a paper prototyping although paper prototyping is essentially a 'hands-on'paper interaction between user and researcher. This is apparent inC. Snyder's book 'Paper Prototyping' on using the technique as a fast and easy way to design and refine user interfaces. Her definition says: -"Paper prototyping is a variation on usability testing where representative users perform realistic tasks while interacting with a paper version of the interface that is manipulated by a person “playing (being the) computer”, who doesn't explain how theinterface is intended to work.*

'Comps' (compositions) of various 'front-page' possibilities

(ftmazur.wordpress.com)

'Story-boarding' of pages as a 'predetermined media' sequence:

(angela-huang.com) (ftmazur.wordpress.com- sequence in progress) 'Wire frames' (structures) page and 'nested' page arrangements:

(wireframes-usability.com )

The above are not strictly paper-style prototyping but they can allbe used within interactive paper prototyping as a direct 'hands-on' or table-top communication to refine a user-based interface design.(NB. Like Snyder, I think while all media can communicate only such direct communication in this interactive teaching and learning can start to build the most complete user-based design.)

S cenario based media d e s igning

Design, extending its focus from new products and services to new social concerns.Some basic images: -

(all images from hist-sdc.com)

The word 'media'today has come notonly to mean amaterial 'medium',like clay, wood etc,but also channels ofcommunication.Similarly, scenariodesign also means all types of interactive systems within communications media. More specifically it means 'strategic' scenario situations in interactive media as in computer 'game playing' entertainment scenario. This has long been used as a highly successful teaching and learning technique in education and

more recently in a control or command simulator for training in strategic instruction. One of the main aims of such media interaction in strategic situations must be to provide data for predictive modeling.

Gamification

This is the use of game design thinking and construction for a work situation, activity or scenario (in part or in total) that did not originally involving game play. It's used as a means of improving users awareness, engagement and learning by motivation to 'play'. It's techniques utilize human desires for competition, status, self-expression, altruism and 'happy-endings'. 'Gamification' is a new term or 'meme' that's actually being used in two distinctive ways, (like the term 'innovation'): -

1. The reworking of a well known Game scenario as a new Game variant (e.g. Chess as 'Fox & Hounds);

2. Taking a well known situation, activity or scenario and creating a completely new Game 'play'.

For me the difference is like that of (1)'functions' and (2)'procedures' in programming. One(1) gives a new Game/program result while the second(2) gives a whole new Game/program and is original and innovative. Problems lie with the first (1). Here questions can arise as to how appropriate game-play is in learningto deal with emotional and emergency situations like those involving high multi-tasking skills; individual trust and care. It's impossible to simulate the full emotional impacts of such situations, beyond those of the Baby-care or 'Tamagotchi' type Apps. Aspects of practical First Aid, 'Nursing care' and Medical training can be served by such 'process' of Gamification by speeding up the decision making processes. First Aid training already uses mnemonic Games to speed up critical diagnosis and and songs to regulate practice. The danger I see is from impersonal 'tick-box' or game-play derived decisions second-guessing 'hands-on' expert decisions in live emergency situations.The main issues with the use of Gamification found within Internet-media is user anonymity and problem reduction and over-simplification. In live everyday situations like marketing/advertising research; legal/public information and social/personal education there are always factors of personal andbusiness interests. The 'top-down drivers' of such scenarios cannot be considered to be unbiased yet they provide web-based

information often appearing and purporting to be independent.

Title: - 'What's their Game?' (plan)

'good' interactive-media design(?)

initial paper prototyping

'storyboarding'

scenario based deigning

gamification* in strategic situations found within Internet interactive-media (communications)

marketing & advertising research legal & public information & education social & personal

*(its subtleties: winners/losers, leaders/followers, buyers/sellers, users/abusers etc)

regulating interactive-media

responsible/appropriate designing with transparency and traceability 'human factors' integration (re: – social, educational and psychological issues)