Mapping the process of product innovation: Contextualising the 'black box' of computer and video games design

The academic literature hitherto has mainly addressed the 'effects' of video games and not their creation. The thesis seeks to gain an understanding of the motivations behind the design choices in creating home computer and video games software in light of this 'gap'. The research sought to understand the process of constructing games by examining: (i) the individual designer's aims and how these were mediated by the contexts of. - (ii) the development team and organisation; (iii) the needs of the audience and their presence in the innovation process and (iv) the impact of the hardware manufacturer's quality assessment upon the game's design. These aims were met by outlining the industry structure operating in the video games' market from the period between the early 1980s to mid-1990s. This was performed with reference to the rise of Sega and Nintendo's hardware and software strategy, covering their diffusion from Japan to the US and UK. This highlighted the context surrounding the creation of three computer games from initial concept to actual commodity that served as the subject of case study analysis. The discussion seeks to explore the implications of the choices made in designing the games and widens the debate to the creation of other games. It is argued that the design of games mirrors aspects similar to the creation of other entertainment media but possess certain problems associated with aesthetic conventions, labour, industry and technical issues unique to this medium. Consequently the thesis outlines certain dimensions that impinge'upon the process of product innovation in entertainment software. From a theoretical perspective the application of a social constructivist approach to the emergence of a leisure technology is a novel one and demonstrates the contingent nature of game design

Pourboire : sociologie compréhensive du style de vie des employés de la restauration

À partir d’une série d’entretiens ethnographiques auprès d’employés des bars et restaurants de Montréal, je me penche dans cette recherche sur le monde de « l’industrie » de la restauration. Au cours de l’enquête, j’identifie un style de vie spécifique composé de ce que j’appelle des « conduites dépensières ». Il s’agit pour ces employés d’un ensemble de pratiques ayant pour conséquence la dépense d’une partie importante de leurs revenus d’emplois dans les restaurants et les bars afin de s’offrir des soirées sociables alcoolisées et des sorties de découvertes gastronomiques. En tentant de rendre compte de ce style de vie, j’avance l’hypothèse que ces conduites sont sous-tendues par un véritable système culturel de coutumes, rituels, normes et valeurs. Au cœur de ce système culturel se trouve le brouillage des frontières entre le professionnel et le privé, le sérieux et le plaisir, le travail et le party. Ce brouillage a pour effet de rediriger une partie des revenus de mes informateurs à l’intérieur de leur univers professionnel. Cette redirection ne serait possible sans le marquage symbolique de l’argent-pourboire, tel que théorisé par Viviana Zelizer, qui fait en sorte que cette monnaie est socialement assignée à la dépense à l’intérieur de « l’industrie ». Au cœur de ma méthode d’enquête se trouve l’utilisation du feuilleton sociologique, véritable outil de validation et de construction des données.Based on a series of ethnographic interviews with bar and restaurant staff in Montreal, I examine in this study the world of the restaurant “industry.” During the investigation, I have identified a specific lifestyle characterized by “spendthrift conducts.” These conducts are a set of behaviors leading to the spending of a significant portion of my informants’ income in gastronomic discoveries and nights of drinking in restaurants and bars. To account for this particular lifestyle, I argue that these behaviors are underpinned by a cultural system of customs, rituals, norms, and values. The blurring of the boundaries between the professional and the private, the serious and the fun, work and party, is central to this cultural system. As a result of this blurring, the informants’ income is reinjected within their professional universe. This would not be possible without the social earmarking of tip, as theorized by Viviana Zelizer. This currency is socially assigned for spending within the “industry.” While writing up this study the sociological feuilleton has turned out to be an original tool for validating and constructing data

The Question: Could a multi-sensory approach to design facilitate a re-enchantment of the food industry in Britain?

This thesis explores the potential of design industries ability to re-enchant the food industry in Britain in 2007. My research is informed by the increasing evidence of the negative impact on human and biosphere wellbeing and industrialization practice in food production and marketing. I highlight the connection between design's promotion of the hegemony of visuality and the marginalization of opportunities to construct connections between food source and its quality through multi-sensory engagement. I have adapted Webber's (2000) idea of disenchantment to describe a condition .in which the deterioration of quality of food experience. I argue that industrialization has created a loss of intangible qualities and traditions that have a clear potential to provide deep sources of pleasure and meaning to participants. I have focused on the relationship between design and food in order to evidence how design has become a tool of instrumental rationality by primarily servicing the short-term economic agendas of corporate business. I argue that design's focus on the role of seduction has led to the marginalization of a latent ability to connect consumers and producers to value through their non-visual senses. I propose that a multi-sensory form of design is capable of informing the restoration/creation of a deeper and more reflective relationship with the food chain. I argue that the route to this outcome is through the re-evaluation and re-education of the role that multi-sensory aesthetics play in the construction of promoting more benign rituals of production and consumption. I use evidence of multi-sensory practice in the non-industrialized and ethical food sector as an analogy and source that could sensory awareness to the designer's portfolio. I draw on a wide range of evidence to inform and support my explanation of the origins and character of the syndrome of industrialized production, marketing and consumption. My goal is informed by a concern to demonstrate that multi-sensory design could support the viability of alternative production and consumption strategie

Stendhal: A Study in Philosophy

A review of critical opinion past and present demonstrates the degree to which Stendhal is perceived as the exponent of a clearly defined philosophical tradition. Generations of scholars have lent support to the assumption that Stendhal made his own the mechanistic materialism of Hobbes and the hedonistic utilitarianism of Helvetius, whilst rallying to the sensationalist Ideology of Destutt de Tracy. The contention of this study is that such a view has been too uncritically endorsed, and that the definition of Stendhal as a 'philosopher' calls for substantial revision. Stendhal is not a philosopher properly so called, namely one engaged in sustained argument; rather he is a philosopher in the popular sense of an intellectual, who brings philosophical concepts to bear upon a range of human, social and moral issues, and who addresses these concepts more from committed standpoints than detached reflection. The revision which the thesis attempts is, similarly, not a philosophical argument; it proceeds by documenting the concepts in question and by examining afresh the treatment which they receive in Stendhal's writings and in the accounts of his commentators

La dimension sensible de l'expérience de consommation : une approche phénoménologique de l'expérience de cuisine

Ce travail de recherche offre un éclairage de la compréhension de l’expérience de consommation. Il décrit et analyse sa dimension sensible à travers une approche phénoménologique. Par le truchement d’une méthode qualitative mobilisant les récits de vie, l’observation et la photographie, cette étude s’est focalisée sur l’expérience de cuisine de 11 individus. L’analyse, suivant une théorisation ancrée, révèle une grille de lecture de l’expérience sensible de consommation. La dimension sensible varie par des degrés d’ouverture et de fermeture du sujet à la pratique de consommation. Elle est ce qui guide son cheminement pendant l’expérience, lui permettant d’aboutir à une réalisation qui devient sienne. La dimension sensible de l’expérience évolue alors intentionnellement par l’intégration de savoirs, de gestes et d’objets dont la perception passe largement par le rapport corporel du consommateur sentant. L’expérience de consommation, approchée à travers la dimension sensible, sous l’angle sensible devient pour le sujet une œuvre ouverte dans laquelle il laisse se déployer sa sensibilité.This research brings new insights into the understanding of consumption experience. More specifically, we seek to describe and analyze its sensible dimension through a phenomenological approach. Based on a qualitative methodology, our study relies on narrative interviews, observation and photography in order to examine the cooking experience of 11 individuals. Following a grounded theory, our analysis provides an interpretative framework of sensible consumption experience. The results show that the sensible dimension varies depending on the extent to which the individual is open or closed to the specific practice of consumption. This is in fact what guides their progress during the experience, allowing them to appropriate their own achievement. The sensible dimension of the experience evolves then intentionally by incorporating knowledge, gestures and objects, the perception of which goes through the body relations of the consumer who feels. From a sensible perspective, the consumption experience becomes an open realm in which the subject can display his(her) sensibility

La dimension sensible de l'expérience de consommation : une approche phénoménologique de l'expérience de cuisine

Ce travail de recherche offre un éclairage de la compréhension de l’expérience de consommation. Il décrit et analyse sa dimension sensible à travers une approche phénoménologique. Par le truchement d’une méthode qualitative mobilisant les récits de vie, l’observation et la photographie, cette étude s’est focalisée sur l’expérience de cuisine de 11 individus. L’analyse, suivant une théorisation ancrée, révèle une grille de lecture de l’expérience sensible de consommation. La dimension sensible varie par des degrés d’ouverture et de fermeture du sujet à la pratique de consommation. Elle est ce qui guide son cheminement pendant l’expérience, lui permettant d’aboutir à une réalisation qui devient sienne. La dimension sensible de l’expérience évolue alors intentionnellement par l’intégration de savoirs, de gestes et d’objets dont la perception passe largement par le rapport corporel du consommateur sentant. L’expérience de consommation, approchée à travers la dimension sensible, sous l’angle sensible devient pour le sujet une œuvre ouverte dans laquelle il laisse se déployer sa sensibilité.This research brings new insights into the understanding of consumption experience. More specifically, we seek to describe and analyze its sensible dimension through a phenomenological approach. Based on a qualitative methodology, our study relies on narrative interviews, observation and photography in order to examine the cooking experience of 11 individuals. Following a grounded theory, our analysis provides an interpretative framework of sensible consumption experience. The results show that the sensible dimension varies depending on the extent to which the individual is open or closed to the specific practice of consumption. This is in fact what guides their progress during the experience, allowing them to appropriate their own achievement. The sensible dimension of the experience evolves then intentionally by incorporating knowledge, gestures and objects, the perception of which goes through the body relations of the consumer who feels. From a sensible perspective, the consumption experience becomes an open realm in which the subject can display his(her) sensibility