Player agency in interactive narrative: audience, actor & author

The question motivating this review paper is, how can computer-based interactive narrative be used as a constructivist learn- ing activity? The paper proposes that player agency can be used to link interactive narrative to learner agency in constructivist theory, and to classify approaches to interactive narrative. The traditional question driving research in interactive narrative is, ‘how can an in- teractive narrative deal with a high degree of player agency, while maintaining a coherent and well-formed narrative?’ This question derives from an Aristotelian approach to interactive narrative that, as the question shows, is inherently antagonistic to player agency. Within this approach, player agency must be restricted and manip- ulated to maintain the narrative. Two alternative approaches based on Brecht’s Epic Theatre and Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed are reviewed. If a Boalian approach to interactive narrative is taken the conflict between narrative and player agency dissolves. The question that emerges from this approach is quite different from the traditional question above, and presents a more useful approach to applying in- teractive narrative as a constructivist learning activity

Digital information support for concept design

This paper outlines the issues in effective utilisation of digital resources in conceptual design. Access to appropriate information acts as stimuli and can lead to better substantiated concepts. This paper addresses the issues of presenting such information in a digital form for effective use, exploring digital libraries and groupware as relevant literature areas, and argues that improved integration of these two technologies is necessary to better support the concept generation task. The development of the LauLima learning environment and digital library is consequently outlined. Despite its attempts to integrate the designers' working space and digital resources, continuing issues in library utilisation and migration of information to design concepts are highlighted through a class study. In light of this, new models of interaction to increase information use are explored

The ixiQuarks: merging code and GUI in one creative space

This paper reports on ixiQuarks; an environment of instruments and effects that is built on top of the audio programming language SuperCollider. The rationale of these instruments is to explore alternative ways of designing musical interaction in screen-based software, and investigate how semiotics in interface design affects the musical output. The ixiQuarks are part of external libraries available to SuperCollider through the Quarks system. They are software instruments based on a non- realist design ideology that rejects the simulation of acoustic instruments or music hardware and focuses on experimentation at the level of musical interaction. In this environment we try to merge the graphical with the textual in the same instruments, allowing the user to reprogram and change parts of them in runtime. After a short introduction to SuperCollider and the Quark system, we will describe the ixiQuarks and the philosophical basis of their design. We conclude by looking at how they can be seen as epistemic tools that influence the musician in a complex hermeneutic circle of interpretation and signification

Design Ltd.: Renovated Myths for the Development of Socially Embedded Technologies

This paper argues that traditional and mainstream mythologies, which have been continually told within the Information Technology domain among designers and advocators of conceptual modelling since the 1960s in different fields of computing sciences, could now be renovated or substituted in the mould of more recent discourses about performativity, complexity and end-user creativity that have been constructed across different fields in the meanwhile. In the paper, it is submitted that these discourses could motivate IT professionals in undertaking alternative approaches toward the co-construction of socio-technical systems, i.e., social settings where humans cooperate to reach common goals by means of mediating computational tools. The authors advocate further discussion about and consolidation of some concepts in design research, design practice and more generally Information Technology (IT) development, like those of: task-artifact entanglement, universatility (sic) of End-User Development (EUD) environments, bricolant/bricoleur end-user, logic of bricolage, maieuta-designers (sic), and laissez-faire method to socio-technical construction. Points backing these and similar concepts are made to promote further discussion on the need to rethink the main assumptions underlying IT design and development some fifty years later the coming of age of software and modern IT in the organizational domain.Comment: This is the peer-unreviewed of a manuscript that is to appear in D. Randall, K. Schmidt, & V. Wulf (Eds.), Designing Socially Embedded Technologies: A European Challenge (2013, forthcoming) with the title "Building Socially Embedded Technologies: Implications on Design" within an EUSSET editorial initiative (www.eusset.eu/

Combining structural performance and designer preferences in evolutionary design space exploration

This paper addresses the need to consider both quantitative performance goals and qualitative requirements in conceptual design. A new computational approach for design space exploration is proposed that extends existing interactive evolutionary algorithms for increased inclusion of designer preferences, overcoming the weaknesses of traditional optimization that have limited its use in practice. This approach allows designers to set the evolutionary parameters of mutation rate and generation size, in addition to parent selection, in order to steer design space exploration. This paper demonstrates the potential of this approach through a numerical parametric study, a software implementation, and series of case studies

Kartografski informacijski sustav \u27\u27ÖROK Atlas Online\u27\u27 – AIS Austrija kao komunikacijski portal temeljnih geopodataka o Austriji

\u27\u27ÖROK Atlas Online\u27\u27 – Atlas Information System Austria (AIS-Austria) – is a research and development project of the Austrian Conference on Spatial Planning (ÖROK) for the construction of a prototype for an interactive, multi-media thematic atlas in cooperation with the Department of Geography and Regional Sciences (IFGR) – University Vienna, the Department of Geoinformation and Cartography (IGK) – University of Technology Vienna and the Austrian Institute of Regional Planning (ÖIR) – Information Services GmbH (I: D). The project started in September 2004. The project duration is 1,5 years. In the prototype of the web atlas, on the basis of the topographical basic geo-data, predefined and prepared for several scales (the basic scale for Austria is 1:1,000.000), thematic contents will be visualized and made accessible over the interactive map based graphical user interface as a communication portal. AIS-Austria is a hybrid system which should be able to ensure also the printed map in a high graphic resolution (the dual atlas principle). The user navigation and system functionalities, which provide the geo-communication, will be presented.\u27\u27ÖROK Atlas Online\u27\u27 – Atlas Information System Austria (AIS-Austria) – je znanstveno-tehnološki projekt Austrijske konferencije za prostorno planiranje (Österreichische Raumordnungskonferenz). U projektu je razrađen prototip interaktivnog, multimedijskog tematskog atlasa na čijoj realizaciji sudjeluju Institut za geografiju i regionalne znanosti Sveučilišta u Beču, Institut za geoinformacije i kartografiju Tehničkog sveučilišta u Beču i Austrijski institut za regionalno planiranje. Projekt je započeo u rujnu 2004. i trajat će 1,5 godinu. U prototipu atlasa bit će realiziran pristup temeljnim topografskim geopodacima, koji su kartografski unaprijed pripremljeni u nekoliko osnovnih mjerila. Nadalje, vizualizacija i interaktivni pristup tematskim podacima bit će dostupan preko korisničkog sučelja kao komunikacijskog portala, čiji je temelj kartografski prikaz (topografija ili već vizualizirana tematika). AIS-Austria je zamišljen kao hibridni informacijski sustav, koji prema želji korisniku daje mogućnost izdavanja sadržaja po vlastitom izboru u vidu papirnate karte visoke kvalitete (dualni princip atlasa). U članku će biti prikazane mogućnosti navigacije kao i funkcionalnost sustava, što podržava geokomunikaciju