DIG Final

The narrator claims that Captain Richard Madden was (Garden of Forking Paths):

"an Irishman in the service of England"

Jorge Luis Borges

(1899 - 1986) Argentinian writer; best known for writing short stories Often seen as the founder of the Magical Realism genre Wrote in Spanish but was fluent in several languages; most of his stories were translated into English Many of his stories present impossible scenarios - for example, "The Library of Babel" focuses on a library with every possible configuration of text in a book He has been considered one of the most important Spanish-language authors of all time, as well as one of the most important of the 20th century in general

Printing, Chapter 9

1414

Protagonist

1414

Activity-Centered Controls

Activity centered controls are very common in digital design - instead of trying to use the physical layout of switches or other kinds of constraints, you simply label each control with the desired activity and allow the user to select it

Famous names IF (Slide)

Catherine J David bolter

You arrive at the Blue Nile Ethiopian restaurant and sit down at a round table. Having been to Ethiopia over the summer, you explain to your friends that there is no silverware, you eat the food with bits of Injera bred.

Cultural Constraint

Cultural Constraints

Cultural constraints are ingrained social behaviors - Norman's example is the set of rules for acceptable behaviors in a restaurant setting.

James Clerk Maxwell

Developed Additive Color Theory and is credited with creating the first true color photograph in 1861. Color was derived by using three color filters: RED, GREEN, & BLUE

The narrator is going to visit (Garden of Forking Paths),:

Dr. Stephen Albert

The Garden of Forking Paths: Character

Dr. Yu Tsun: The narrator and protagonist of the story. He is a round character who goes from being a coward at the end of the story to someone who is brave enough to commit a murder. Richard Madden: The antagonist of the story; an officer in the English army who is hunting the narrator. He is a flat character who does not really change - interestingly, we never even really see him in the story. Dr. Stephen Albert: A renowned scholar who studies Ts'ui Pen's works; he is a flat character who is mostly there as a plot device, since he needs to be killed by the narrator to achieve his goals.

In the double diamond design model, one should diverge and converge to find a problem, and then diverge and converge again to find the solution.

False

Printed checklist are helpful in combating memory lapses in complex tasks because they impose sequential structure to task completion. T/F

False

The Garden of Forking Paths: Genre / Subgenre

Genre: Short story - this is a piece of fiction that is generally meant to be read in a single sitting Subgenre: Spy fiction / Magical Realism The story contains many common themes of spy fiction: the narrator has a secret message, is being hunted by an enemy agent, and the plot revolves around murder It also contains elements of Magical Realism, but most notably in how they are NOT present: the narrator's ancestor tries to do the impossible and fails

To battle time crunches, Norman suggests

Have some designers always doing field research

Interlocks

Interlocks force operations to happen in the correct order and are typically uses in situations where safety is an issue

Lock-ins

Lock-ins are designed to keep an operation active and prevent them from being stopped prematurely

Lock-outs

Lockouts are designed to prevent unwanted actions from happening at all

Your toaster broke, alas. To fix it you take it apart, find a loose wire, reconnect it, and put it back together again. Upon completion, you find an extra screw. You think you've made a mistake, that screw must belong somewhere in the toaster.

Logical Constraint

Logical Constraints

Logical constraints are simply constraints of logic - Norman's example is when you have a leftover LEGO piece and one open slot on the model you are building.

McLuhan argues that meaning is conveyed by:

Media

Analogous

Next to each other

Conventions, Constraints, and Affordances

Norman also highlights the concept of conventions to point out that it these that often help us understand signifiers and affordances.

Using Sound as Signifiers

Norman also points out that in some cases, it is difficult or impossible to make everything visible - he suggests that the solution in this case is using sound.

Forcing functions

Norman notes that these are a kind of physical constraint - the action is constrained so that failure at one stage keeps the next stage from starting.

The Garden of Forking Paths - Summary

Overall, this story is seen as a key text in the history of hypertext fiction While it is not a piece of hypertext fiction itself, it references the idea of one well before it was actually possible to truly create one in a digital sense It is also a good way of imagining the possibilities of a digital story - it can play out in many different ways and have many different endings While you want to be careful about including TOO many possibilities in your story, this text is a very good introduction to thinking about the ways that stories can play out in digital environments

Even though you have never used the conference room computer before, you can tell immediately which port to insert your USB drive in because of its size and shape.

Physical Constraint

Positive and Negative Shapes

Positive shapes - the object(s) or figure(s) that the viewer focuses on. Negative shapes - the empty space (or the space filled with other imagery) left over in the piece.

Additive Color

RGB, Additive Color is based on Reflected Light

Semantic Constraints

Semantics is the study of meaning - so these constraints rely on a person's knowledge and ability to make meaning of a situation.

Which is more important to psychological perceptions of an interface?

The Conceptual Model

The author claims that "nothing can beat _______" for intensity of user participation, freedom of choice, and depth of immersion

The Holodeck

Shape

The areas within a composition that have boundaries separating them from what surrounds them; shapes make those areas distinct.

The Garden of Forking Paths: Plot

The plot of this story follows a fairly traditional plot model: Exposition: The beginning of the story - we find out who the narrator is, when and where the story is taking place, what his mission is, etc. Rising action: We find out the narrator is being hunted and watch as he tries to escape, eventually arriving at the home of Dr. Stephen Albert Climax: The narrator realizes Dr. Albert is a great scholar of his ancestor and that Dr. Albert recognizes him as Ts'ui Pen's descendent Falling Action: Dr. Albert explains many things about Ts'ui Pen that the narrator has never understood, but the narrator knows he will have to kill Dr. Albert to complete his mission Denouement: The narrator kills Dr. Albert and is arrested, but achieves his goal

Value

The value of a color of a surface is its lightness or darkness.

Physical Constraint

These kinds of constraints limit possible operations because you physically cannot do certain things - Norman's example is that you cannot fit a large peg into a small hole.

The Garden of Forking Paths: Setting

Time period: During World War I - the opening introduction seems to suggest the year 1916. Place: The narrator travels a bit throughout the story, but the primary action takes place in Dr. Stephen Albert's home. Situation: A fairly realistic world - in fact, this is one of Borges' few stories in which "magic" is not really involved at all

When diagnosing a problem, Norman recommends asking _______ repeatedly.

Why

Hue

a term for the family of color.

Value contrast

degrees of difference between shades of gray

The author claims that interactive fiction can be classified in two ways: bottom up systems that are _____ and top down systems that are ______.

emergent / prescripted

Zork

first IF to see a commercial release

McLuhan believes television

is participatory engages the whole body

In the text, McLuhan notes that Socrates believed writing:

leads to forgetfulness, and thus ignorance

Spatial Immersion

simulating movement as an embodied experience

Chapter 11

study

Epistemic immersion

the desire to know

figure - ground relationship

the relationship between the positive and negative shapes in a piece.

Temporal immersion

three narrative effects: curiosity, surprise, suspense

comics

visual + text 1930s-50s

figure - ground reversals

when the positive and negative shapes in a piece can be reversed or are ambiguous.