Experimental Interaction

Prakash Prasad (prpr@itu.dk)

DOB: 11-10-1983
Experimental Interaction (MEXI - 0810005U)
Teacher: Pippin Barr (pjba@itu.dk)
Wednesday, December 8, 2010

A B S T R A C T R E P R E S E N TAT I O N :
EXPERIMENTING WITH INTERACTION
In this paper, we describes the process involved in designing an interaction
system that is build with the purpose of conversing with its user about a
social phenomenon in such a way that the user experiences the intended
emotional stimuli. While taking on the task of designing such an experimental
system, the core objective is to understand what that involves. Hence, before
tackling the task of designing the above mentioned system, a design
psychology is presented as a hypothesis. This hypothesis will be backed by
examples of existing games that can be termed as experimental.
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INTRODUCTION

The word “Experimental Interaction” pertains to an emergent form of interaction used in

modern system design. These forms have a common denominator of making the user feel more
immersed than contemporary forms. It is commonly argued that an effective way to come up with
new experimental interaction models is by focusing on developing new agency systems for the
users. Almost all such systems can be categorized to be working on either one or both of the
following levels:

• User’s input to the system,

• System’s feedback - be it visual/auditive or physical.

What we have described above is the simplest form in which the system can engage the user
by means of clear-cut cues. We can say that the system uses the affordances perceived by the user
to formulate his input as well as gauge the feedback from the system. For example - almost all
games show a death animation to impress upon the player that the last action they did was not a
positive action. In a similar fashion, a first-person shooter representation of the world affords to the
player that directional keys are to move around in the world.

Mirror’s Edge - Do those arms belong to me?

As is evident from the examples listed above, such systems often explore and exploit the
perceived affordances attached to the object that users interact with. In terms of definition,
Norman1 describes affordance of an object as “the perceived and actual properties of the thing,
primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be use”.

1 Norman, Donald - Design of Everyday Things (1990)

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This property of an object is quint-essential in gauging how users will interact with the object. For
instance, a teddy-bear is automatically perceived by the players as an object to be cuddled, rather
than being used as a kicking ball.

The most common (and successful) way of incorporating affordances into an object are by
giving it a representation that is analogous to real-world objects - for example, the healing
substance in a game is depicted as a medicine pack, which most users can relate to (however
unlikely they are to make a full recovery in real-time). Instead, if that same healing object was
named “X”, then an extra explanation would have to be given to the user about what that object
is, and why it has healing qualities. This model of representation can be thought of as having a close
correlation to real-world objects. Using such a representation means that the object is targeted
towards an audience that would engage more readily with objects closer to the real-world objects.

PROCESS LEADING TO DESIGN

As established in the previous section, affordances play a very crucial role in systems design. So
much so that an effective way for designing experimental interaction systems can arguably be to
turn these affordances on their head. This can be in terms of inputs or outputs, or the
representation of objects in the system. An example of breaking the affordance system for inputs is
Chase Goose 22 . This game breaks the user’s perception that each action is tied to a particular key
on the keyboard. Similarly, an example of stepping away from affordance regarding representation
can be seen in games such as Chinese Checkers or Go. The pieces on the board are completely
abstract and have no real-life attachment. They are not even shaped to resemble any object like it is
the case in Chess.

Chase Goose 2 - Ever changing input scheme

But what happens when we introduce a system where the user does not have any perceived
affordances with the objects in the system. In other terms, if the system representation is

2 http://www.kongregate.com/games/Hideous/chase-goose-2
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abstracted away from real-world symbology. It is this design paradigm that this paper will explore
and try to analyze the effects on the interaction system and user experience.

REFERENCES TO OTHER GAMES

This idea is definitely not unique. Many designers have been playing with the schema of abstract
representation:

• The Marriage3 - This game by Rod Humble is an abstract representation of a married

couple which simulates its evolution over a lifetime depending on the players input. The
system is so abstract that sometimes players can only understand its meaning after reading
the description on the game’s website. This game system gives no feedback to the player in
terms of fail or win state, nor about what effect does player input have. One of the biggest
accolade brandished on the game is that several people have been touched by the very
accurate design dynamics of married life in the game.

The Marriage - I wonder what that game’s about?

3 http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/marriage.html
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• Rez 4 - This is a musical shooter game that has an abstract representation which
encourages the player to explore and engage with this musical world. The abstract
representation in this game however seems to serve the purpose of visual aesthetics rather
than removing or abstracting away the affordances.

• Galcon 5 - The game is an evolutionary hive cluster fighting game where players can take
over other player’s hive my sending “triangles” to attack but have to be aware that their
own weakened hives can be attacked as well. This game presents a very important feature
of abstract systems. Abstract systems bypass cultural, linguistic and regional barriers, and
present the interaction system in a pure vision without diverting away the attention of the
user by “frills”. This abstract representation, when combined with an evolutionary system
that the user feels tactile control over, leads to an imaginary world that makes use of the
most powerful processing unit in the world - the user’s fantasy.

Galcon - Fun abstraction

• Eliss6 - This is a highly acclaimed game for the Apple touch products, which vaguely
represents a solar system where the player can combine and separate blobs of matter and
play with the system. But nothing in the game tells this to the player. For the player, it could
be purely about trigonometry. Since the representation of the game is so abstract, the

4 http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Rez-HD/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802584108b3
5 http://www.galcon.com/
6 http://www.toucheliss.com/
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player is thrown into an uncertain space where the first hurdle becomes to figure out what
he’s supposed to do. Figuring out the game system becomes a pleasurable exercise and
immerses the player in he game world. The system in this case however is not as vague and
abstract as The Marriage and there are clear clues in the game to give pointers about the
game events and outcomes.

Eliss - All those colors are ours

INSPIRATION

A very important social phenomenon that has been my influence for this project is the
evolution and spread of religions. As many scholars like Diamond 7 have philosophized, the spread
of religions in societies have had more to do with social organization rather than the appearance of
some messiah. Religions have tended to take shape by adopting the popular beliefs of other religion
and converting disciples of smaller religions by force or coercion.

DESIGN

Using this theory, I came up with an abstract, evolutionary game system that I believe can be
categorized as an experimental interaction system. The game draws its inspiration from evolution of
religions, where the faith would transfer from one person to another and reach far corners of the
world. The game represents “entities”, for the player as well as the opposition. These entities can be
distinguished by their colors. Selecting and dragging with the mouse makes these entities move

7 Jared Diamond, professor of Geography, UCLA - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOsOb0QRaQs

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around in the level, while the opposition entities randomly roam around in the level. The base rule
of the world is that the isolated opposition entities in touch with player’s entity will start changing
their color and faction to the player’s. But if the transformation process is interrupted by another of
opposition entity coming in contact with this couple, then the player’s entity will loose its color and
change to the opposition’s.

EVALUATION

This paper hypothesizes that abstract representation systems can generate an unbiased and
pure immersive experience for the player, along with delivering the intended moral behind the
system in a much more effective fashion. Before we can test whether the prototype of the system
we have build works or not, we need to test the systems that have been proven to be quite
successful. For this purpose, I carried out a test session with several subjects testing a set of three
games in a particular sequence - The Marriage, Eliss and then the prototype build for this project
(Convert One). Here’s a brief summation of the comments and experiences of the players:

• The Marriage - The game was received with the highest amount of cluelessness by the
players. The lack of a concrete set of rules meant that none of the play-testers could play the
game in what might be termed as a “successful” way. When asked, “what they thought the game
was about?”, the answer was invariably - “Its about a marriage! Isn’t it?” While the game tries very
hard (and succeeds) to be as abstract as possible, there is one big clink in its armor - its title. As
soon as the players know the name of the game, they know what the moral of the story is. This
also turns out to be success for the game. The moral is immediately communicated to the user -
however, not in a way that they would like to try the game again and again. The level of
abstractness in this game, sadly does not proportionally relate to fun.

• Eliss - This game had less abstraction than the previous game along with an absence of
moral behind the system. The play-testers started out by being confounded by the abstract
system. Slowly they started to figure out the system via a very well defined (non-abstract)
feedback system from the game. Some players had problems understanding that they could
control all the colors, while others were adept enough to figure out that some abstract triangle
that seemed to be part of explosions were also points that could be picked up. It seemed like the
abstractness of the game was subjective and was proportional to the willingness of the players to
think outside the box. This evolutionary system that could be controlled in a tactile manner by
the players provided satisfaction whenever they figured each small piece of the puzzle.

• Convert One (working title) - This is the system that I had designed as a religion
simulator. Play-testers were informed about the rules of the game, but not about the moral
behind the system. Play-testers found out that due to a flaw in the game code, the conversions
happened quite randomly. This diminished the fun they had with the system as they felt no
control over it. In addition, the system was found to be too simple to keep the players engaged
for a long period. But the play-testers approved the look and feel of the game with the tedious
and slow movement, as well as the indirect control over own entities made them feel engaged
with the system. About 50% of the play-testers could guess that the moral of the game had
something to do with religion or politics.
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Convert One - The game of religions

CONCLUSION

As is clearly evident from the tests and analysis of the games (including “convert one”), abstract
representation in a system is capable of engaging the player enough to figure out the moral behind
the system. But without proper feedback, users do not have prolonged sessions of interaction with
the system as well as loose interest in the object. There is a higher chance of success (i.e. to convey
the moral story behind the system) if the abstractness of the system is slightly compromised. The
objective of the system is hence modified to have the fun factor of Eliss, along with touching on a
social moral like The Marriage.

For this purpose, I suggest that the system for Convert One be modified to the following:

• The speed of the opponent entities should increase over time to make managing the game
more chaotic.

• Different kind of mechanics should be introduced (right now the game only has conversion
as the central mechanic)

• There can be prophets that appear from time to time,

• There might be certain entities in the level that can never be converted, but they can
be “accessed” to adopt rituals from the other religion. These rituals make the player’s
entities less susceptible to conversion.

• Multi-touch input that on a Microsoft Surface tabletop to allow multiplayer collaboration

with other players.