1 00:00:11,460 --> 00:00:16,920 PROFESSOR: We're going to start with the discussion portion, 2 00:00:16,920 --> 00:00:20,968 just to give a little context to the reading 3 00:00:20,968 --> 00:00:21,885 that we've been doing. 4 00:00:25,290 --> 00:00:35,580 I am a big fan of having designers think about artifacts 5 00:00:35,580 --> 00:00:41,370 through the lens of criticism every now and then, 6 00:00:41,370 --> 00:00:50,310 and I have a background in games criticism. 7 00:00:50,310 --> 00:00:54,060 I did that for about 10 years in parallel 8 00:00:54,060 --> 00:00:58,380 with my illustrious academic career 9 00:00:58,380 --> 00:01:01,050 when I was still in Sweden. 10 00:01:01,050 --> 00:01:08,970 So I also teach games criticism to unrelated students 11 00:01:08,970 --> 00:01:10,950 here at MIT. 12 00:01:10,950 --> 00:01:18,900 And when it comes how to do critiques 13 00:01:18,900 --> 00:01:24,000 of interactive artifacts, there's 14 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:29,880 still a lot of uncertainty about how to best do it, 15 00:01:29,880 --> 00:01:35,490 and how and why it needs to be different from criticism 16 00:01:35,490 --> 00:01:38,610 of film or literature, or any of these things 17 00:01:38,610 --> 00:01:46,140 that we've been doing analysis of since for it. 18 00:01:46,140 --> 00:01:49,380 And one of the approaches is a method 19 00:01:49,380 --> 00:01:51,840 called interaction criticism. 20 00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:57,780 It's not specifically designed for games 21 00:01:57,780 --> 00:02:00,400 or playful interactive experiences, 22 00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:11,280 but just interactive, non-production-related 23 00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:14,820 artifacts in general. 24 00:02:14,820 --> 00:02:18,720 And the things we've been reading today 25 00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:24,370 is, one, from the originator himself, Jeff Bardzell. 26 00:02:24,370 --> 00:02:29,400 So we're trying to give an introduction to the method 27 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:31,440 and the theory behind it. 28 00:02:31,440 --> 00:02:38,550 And the other one is him and two other interaction design 29 00:02:38,550 --> 00:02:41,280 and media studies scholars trying 30 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:47,010 to apply interaction criticism to a particular cultural 31 00:02:47,010 --> 00:02:52,230 artifact, and through different senses 32 00:02:52,230 --> 00:02:53,850 and seeing what they come up with, 33 00:02:53,850 --> 00:02:56,790 and whether that's interesting and fruitful. 34 00:02:56,790 --> 00:02:59,970 So with that said, let's start with the one 35 00:02:59,970 --> 00:03:02,910 called Interaction Criticism, an Introduction to the Practice, 36 00:03:02,910 --> 00:03:05,150 and put keywords on the whiteboard. 37 00:03:10,060 --> 00:03:21,730 OK, so maybe we want to start with-- 38 00:03:21,730 --> 00:03:23,620 it doesn't matter which one of these-- 39 00:03:23,620 --> 00:03:27,190 but subjective. 40 00:03:27,190 --> 00:03:28,353 Who put that there? 41 00:03:28,353 --> 00:03:29,020 AUDIENCE: Hello. 42 00:03:29,020 --> 00:03:30,265 PROFESSOR: OK, hello. 43 00:03:30,265 --> 00:03:35,050 AUDIENCE: OK, so one of the interesting things 44 00:03:35,050 --> 00:03:37,360 from this paper I noticed is that when 45 00:03:37,360 --> 00:03:40,810 you talk about criticism, it's someone's judgment on a thing, 46 00:03:40,810 --> 00:03:43,060 and that judgment can often be subjective. 47 00:03:43,060 --> 00:03:45,280 And so a lot of the discussion in this paper 48 00:03:45,280 --> 00:03:50,080 is reconciling the clearly subjective nature of criticism, 49 00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:54,910 but in a way that, they say, is judgments 50 00:03:54,910 --> 00:03:57,115 that are subjective, but non-perspectival. 51 00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:02,260 Is that how you pronounce that? 52 00:04:02,260 --> 00:04:04,840 PROFESSOR: I think they probably just made up the word, 53 00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:07,750 so it's your call. 54 00:04:07,750 --> 00:04:11,870 AUDIENCE: I know what they mean, which ties into perspectives. 55 00:04:11,870 --> 00:04:14,500 But the idea is that the judgment 56 00:04:14,500 --> 00:04:20,620 itself comes from, they focus on critics that are experts 57 00:04:20,620 --> 00:04:23,530 in their fields, and the judgments themselves come 58 00:04:23,530 --> 00:04:37,420 from experts who know about many similar types of interaction, I 59 00:04:37,420 --> 00:04:37,920 would say. 60 00:04:37,920 --> 00:04:40,800 I don't want to say games, because it doesn't say games. 61 00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:45,150 PROFESSOR: Yeah, no, it clearly sort of skirts. 62 00:04:45,150 --> 00:04:50,610 So just to interrupt a little bit. 63 00:04:50,610 --> 00:04:53,280 Specifically, [INAUDIBLE] is one of the people who 64 00:04:53,280 --> 00:04:55,500 are applying it in the second paper, 65 00:04:55,500 --> 00:05:00,270 has said that the only professional practice 66 00:05:00,270 --> 00:05:04,410 of interaction criticism is games criticism. 67 00:05:04,410 --> 00:05:10,230 We don't have any other sort of interactive art form that's 68 00:05:10,230 --> 00:05:14,580 sort of strong enough to have people get paid 69 00:05:14,580 --> 00:05:16,380 to do this kind of criticism. 70 00:05:16,380 --> 00:05:19,710 So for better or worse, that's kind 71 00:05:19,710 --> 00:05:22,800 of what we have to look to as an example. 72 00:05:22,800 --> 00:05:27,300 But especially Bardzell, I think, 73 00:05:27,300 --> 00:05:32,010 it's very critical to how games criticism is currently done, 74 00:05:32,010 --> 00:05:33,930 and thinks that there's a lot to learn 75 00:05:33,930 --> 00:05:36,210 from other critical practices, and he 76 00:05:36,210 --> 00:05:42,740 comes from a background in those areas. 77 00:05:42,740 --> 00:05:48,240 So yeah, he's not going to talk about games, 78 00:05:48,240 --> 00:05:50,383 but they're sort of hovering in there. 79 00:05:50,383 --> 00:05:52,050 AUDIENCE: And he also mentions, I guess, 80 00:05:52,050 --> 00:05:55,530 also that they're not talking about amateur critics, 81 00:05:55,530 --> 00:05:59,370 like the people who go on Amazon or on Steam and rate whatever 82 00:05:59,370 --> 00:06:00,840 they want to rate. 83 00:06:00,840 --> 00:06:03,930 Because that could be subjective but very 84 00:06:03,930 --> 00:06:07,860 based on that person's own experience 85 00:06:07,860 --> 00:06:12,200 without trying to see things in a broader context. 86 00:06:12,200 --> 00:06:13,730 PROFESSOR: So to begin with, what 87 00:06:13,730 --> 00:06:20,060 do we think of this idea of a somehow 88 00:06:20,060 --> 00:06:22,354 more rigorous objectivity? 89 00:06:22,354 --> 00:06:23,854 AUDIENCE: Yeah, that's [INAUDIBLE].. 90 00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:28,340 PROFESSOR: Reflections on that? 91 00:06:34,500 --> 00:06:36,030 Yes? 92 00:06:36,030 --> 00:06:37,200 AUDIENCE: I put aesthetics. 93 00:06:37,200 --> 00:06:41,530 And so it's very similar to what we're talking about right now, 94 00:06:41,530 --> 00:06:46,320 which I find that, throughout the readings that we've 95 00:06:46,320 --> 00:06:51,390 been doing, design is in the middle of science and art. 96 00:06:51,390 --> 00:06:54,960 So a lot of times there's a temptation 97 00:06:54,960 --> 00:06:56,400 to do things very scientifically, 98 00:06:56,400 --> 00:06:59,280 but that fails when aesthetics come into play, because they're 99 00:06:59,280 --> 00:07:01,110 very subjective. 100 00:07:01,110 --> 00:07:05,400 And so that's why we need criticism. 101 00:07:05,400 --> 00:07:08,940 That's what they're kind of saying. 102 00:07:08,940 --> 00:07:12,870 PROFESSOR: Right, so we don't have a choice but to rely 103 00:07:12,870 --> 00:07:18,210 on our subjectivity , because there's no other rules given 104 00:07:18,210 --> 00:07:23,130 to us for how to evaluate this kind of stuff. 105 00:07:23,130 --> 00:07:27,430 It's not just describable. 106 00:07:27,430 --> 00:07:30,310 That misses some important point. 107 00:07:30,310 --> 00:07:34,450 By the way, I would say that Bardzell doesn't 108 00:07:34,450 --> 00:07:39,520 think of design as something in between science and art, 109 00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:43,570 but rather something distinctly different from both. 110 00:07:43,570 --> 00:07:47,920 So he wants it to be its own thing. 111 00:07:47,920 --> 00:07:51,820 But yes, clearly, all the sources that he 112 00:07:51,820 --> 00:07:53,680 is borrowing on when he's creating 113 00:07:53,680 --> 00:07:59,620 this method coming from one or the other, so there's that. 114 00:08:03,020 --> 00:08:09,040 But yes, and those were the word pair I was thinking of, 115 00:08:09,040 --> 00:08:10,790 when I said we could start in either end. 116 00:08:10,790 --> 00:08:19,960 But then what goes into this expertise 117 00:08:19,960 --> 00:08:21,400 that he talks about how? 118 00:08:21,400 --> 00:08:26,260 Do we justify that someone's subjective opinion of something 119 00:08:26,260 --> 00:08:30,610 is more, weighs heavier than someone else's? 120 00:08:30,610 --> 00:08:36,549 What makes up for the difference between a critic 121 00:08:36,549 --> 00:08:39,580 and someone on Amazon? 122 00:08:39,580 --> 00:08:41,799 AUDIENCE: Well, knowledge about the field 123 00:08:41,799 --> 00:08:45,430 and having a very broad experience, 124 00:08:45,430 --> 00:08:48,300 and I guess the people who you are critiquing, 125 00:08:48,300 --> 00:08:49,720 or who are reading the critiques, 126 00:08:49,720 --> 00:08:51,880 knowing that you have that broad experience. 127 00:08:51,880 --> 00:08:55,600 Someone that got an espresso machine off Amazon 128 00:08:55,600 --> 00:08:57,580 might leave a terrible review being like, oh, 129 00:08:57,580 --> 00:09:00,640 it didn't just instantly make me coffee, one star, 130 00:09:00,640 --> 00:09:03,610 because they don't understand how the espresso machine works, 131 00:09:03,610 --> 00:09:05,980 or what the different grades might be, 132 00:09:05,980 --> 00:09:08,320 or how any of the different pieces of the process work. 133 00:09:08,320 --> 00:09:11,590 Whereas the critic who will have value behind what they say 134 00:09:11,590 --> 00:09:14,290 understands the whole field, and how this helps, 135 00:09:14,290 --> 00:09:16,210 and what place it has, and what the context 136 00:09:16,210 --> 00:09:19,690 of it, and like other good works in the field are. 137 00:09:19,690 --> 00:09:20,920 PROFESSOR: Right. 138 00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:23,110 So a good example, so this is one 139 00:09:23,110 --> 00:09:27,310 of those things that are often highlighted in design 140 00:09:27,310 --> 00:09:30,310 educations, and I probably have said the word a couple of times 141 00:09:30,310 --> 00:09:31,760 during the semester as well. 142 00:09:31,760 --> 00:09:35,950 So the way we educate ourselves in design 143 00:09:35,950 --> 00:09:38,500 is often looking at what has been 144 00:09:38,500 --> 00:09:41,230 established as good examples. 145 00:09:41,230 --> 00:09:44,530 And they're good just because someone decided they were good. 146 00:09:44,530 --> 00:09:47,170 There's nothing in nature determining 147 00:09:47,170 --> 00:09:50,740 that they're good other than ourselves and our community, 148 00:09:50,740 --> 00:09:55,330 but that has an important role, I would say, 149 00:09:55,330 --> 00:09:59,110 within games criticism. 150 00:09:59,110 --> 00:10:03,460 There's nothing that speaks as loud as having 151 00:10:03,460 --> 00:10:08,030 this almost data-based knowledge of the history of video games 152 00:10:08,030 --> 00:10:09,700 when you get interviewed for writing 153 00:10:09,700 --> 00:10:14,290 for a website or a journal, or something, magazine, 154 00:10:14,290 --> 00:10:15,820 I should say. 155 00:10:15,820 --> 00:10:18,100 That's what they question you on, 156 00:10:18,100 --> 00:10:21,130 do you know about this and that, and that 157 00:10:21,130 --> 00:10:24,970 is the most important criteria for whether you're 158 00:10:24,970 --> 00:10:26,762 going to get the job or not. 159 00:10:26,762 --> 00:10:28,750 AUDIENCE: It's, do you know the history? 160 00:10:28,750 --> 00:10:29,950 PROFESSOR: Yes. 161 00:10:29,950 --> 00:10:34,120 And that is one of the things that Bardzell would say 162 00:10:34,120 --> 00:10:36,280 is the problem with games criticism. 163 00:10:36,280 --> 00:10:38,950 What do you think could be potentially 164 00:10:38,950 --> 00:10:42,490 an issue with that kind of filter 165 00:10:42,490 --> 00:10:44,736 for who gets to be a critic? 166 00:10:44,736 --> 00:10:48,172 AUDIENCE: I'm not playing games to know the history of games. 167 00:10:48,172 --> 00:10:48,880 PROFESSOR: Right. 168 00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:51,850 But yeah, they actually expect you to not just know it, 169 00:10:51,850 --> 00:10:52,870 but have played it. 170 00:10:52,870 --> 00:10:57,940 So the most well-played, if we can make up a word 171 00:10:57,940 --> 00:11:02,620 based on well-read, so the most well-played people 172 00:11:02,620 --> 00:11:05,440 tend to get the jobs as critics. 173 00:11:05,440 --> 00:11:09,190 But is there a problem with that? 174 00:11:09,190 --> 00:11:10,800 And what would that-- 175 00:11:10,800 --> 00:11:13,480 and now we're sort of off the paper already, 176 00:11:13,480 --> 00:11:15,430 but we'll get back to it. 177 00:11:15,430 --> 00:11:17,710 AUDIENCE: There's sort of a disconnect between someone 178 00:11:17,710 --> 00:11:19,750 who has played a lot of games, with someone 179 00:11:19,750 --> 00:11:23,060 who has played no games. 180 00:11:23,060 --> 00:11:25,870 PROFESSOR: Yes. 181 00:11:25,870 --> 00:11:26,927 But, yes. 182 00:11:26,927 --> 00:11:28,760 AUDIENCE: Well, I mean, it was a good point. 183 00:11:28,760 --> 00:11:33,850 It would be difficult for the folks who played a lot of games 184 00:11:33,850 --> 00:11:38,350 to be able to even translate their thoughts to someone who's 185 00:11:38,350 --> 00:11:40,370 never played those games. 186 00:11:40,370 --> 00:11:43,810 PROFESSOR: Oh, that's what you were saying. 187 00:11:43,810 --> 00:11:50,200 So yes, you will be a little bit like, let's say, a jazz 188 00:11:50,200 --> 00:11:53,680 critic that just listens to-- 189 00:11:53,680 --> 00:11:54,685 AUDIENCE: Coltrane. 190 00:11:54,685 --> 00:11:55,810 PROFESSOR: Well, not even-- 191 00:11:55,810 --> 00:11:58,180 Coltrane is for the masses. 192 00:11:58,180 --> 00:12:01,180 They're beyond Coltrane. 193 00:12:01,180 --> 00:12:05,390 They might be talking above the heads of most people, 194 00:12:05,390 --> 00:12:08,800 so there's a disconnect with the audience. 195 00:12:08,800 --> 00:12:13,960 So that might just make the criticism very insular 196 00:12:13,960 --> 00:12:18,610 and not really sort of reach the audience 197 00:12:18,610 --> 00:12:21,980 who might be interested in evaluation 198 00:12:21,980 --> 00:12:23,455 of these cultural artifacts. 199 00:12:23,455 --> 00:12:28,060 So that, I think, is a very good point. 200 00:12:28,060 --> 00:12:31,010 Anything else along those lines? 201 00:12:31,010 --> 00:12:35,320 AUDIENCE: So what a fix to accommodate 202 00:12:35,320 --> 00:12:38,530 for that be to ask for a writing sample 203 00:12:38,530 --> 00:12:40,540 and actually judge whether or not 204 00:12:40,540 --> 00:12:46,600 that person can communicate at multiple levels of an audience? 205 00:12:46,600 --> 00:12:48,550 PROFESSOR: Actually, the most important skill 206 00:12:48,550 --> 00:12:52,120 is not being a very knowledgeable gamer, 207 00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:53,320 but being a good writer. 208 00:12:53,320 --> 00:12:59,010 Because without that skill, you get nowhere. 209 00:12:59,010 --> 00:13:01,870 And no one's going to read you, basically, 210 00:13:01,870 --> 00:13:05,310 because you write like a robot, or something. 211 00:13:05,310 --> 00:13:09,550 AUDIENCE: Actually, I want to say even the converse might 212 00:13:09,550 --> 00:13:12,820 actually be true, of trying to look for people who don't sort 213 00:13:12,820 --> 00:13:16,030 of toe the line of traditional game criticism 214 00:13:16,030 --> 00:13:20,290 and become a lot more sought after and invited now. 215 00:13:20,290 --> 00:13:26,590 So folks who are expressly stating opinions 216 00:13:26,590 --> 00:13:31,630 from or analyzing games are coming up 217 00:13:31,630 --> 00:13:33,310 from the lens of something that's 218 00:13:33,310 --> 00:13:35,480 not like traditional games criticism. 219 00:13:35,480 --> 00:13:40,060 It seems, in this click-hungry media 220 00:13:40,060 --> 00:13:44,080 landscape, seemed actually to be a lot more interesting to read. 221 00:13:44,080 --> 00:13:45,580 So they're good writers, and they're 222 00:13:45,580 --> 00:13:47,140 bringing a new perspective. 223 00:13:47,140 --> 00:13:51,820 PROFESSOR: And I think for, among other things, 224 00:13:51,820 --> 00:13:56,890 one important reason is that there is an existing 225 00:13:56,890 --> 00:14:03,520 hegemony around the field of what a good game is and should 226 00:14:03,520 --> 00:14:10,840 be that may be based on assumptions about gender 227 00:14:10,840 --> 00:14:14,380 and culture that should be questioned. 228 00:14:14,380 --> 00:14:18,430 It might be white men writing for white men, basically, 229 00:14:18,430 --> 00:14:20,390 of a certain age. 230 00:14:20,390 --> 00:14:24,820 And if we think, especially back in time, 231 00:14:24,820 --> 00:14:27,520 playing video games, having grown up 232 00:14:27,520 --> 00:14:30,940 playing all these games on all these consoles 233 00:14:30,940 --> 00:14:34,840 implies a very strong privilege when 234 00:14:34,840 --> 00:14:38,980 it comes to finance, your family's finances, 235 00:14:38,980 --> 00:14:40,090 for instance. 236 00:14:40,090 --> 00:14:42,520 Consoles used to be, I mean, they 237 00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:44,620 used to cost the same as they cost today. 238 00:14:44,620 --> 00:14:46,780 Games used to cost the same as they cost today, 239 00:14:46,780 --> 00:14:50,920 but that was a lot more money in the '80s and '90s 240 00:14:50,920 --> 00:14:51,860 than it is now. 241 00:14:51,860 --> 00:14:58,030 So someone who had access to all of the existing home consoles 242 00:14:58,030 --> 00:15:00,340 was probably a rich kid. 243 00:15:00,340 --> 00:15:04,150 So those were the ones who became reviewers and decided 244 00:15:04,150 --> 00:15:05,300 what a good game is. 245 00:15:05,300 --> 00:15:09,640 So there's something about looking to those good examples 246 00:15:09,640 --> 00:15:14,290 that could also need some questioning, and we might need 247 00:15:14,290 --> 00:15:17,800 to break with those traditions and look 248 00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:22,690 at other potential values in interactive artifacts 249 00:15:22,690 --> 00:15:24,910 as the ones that we are creating, 250 00:15:24,910 --> 00:15:26,710 those that are maybe more inclusive, 251 00:15:26,710 --> 00:15:30,850 or taking other skillsets to heart, 252 00:15:30,850 --> 00:15:34,750 rather than just excellent hand-eye coordination, 253 00:15:34,750 --> 00:15:39,970 or whatever it is that makes a good gamer. 254 00:15:39,970 --> 00:15:42,340 AUDIENCE: Before we leave this, just one more angle 255 00:15:42,340 --> 00:15:46,480 I want to bring up, which is, even if you were expressly 256 00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:49,150 looking for people who state that they 257 00:15:49,150 --> 00:15:57,550 have a long history with games and can bring up this catalog, 258 00:15:57,550 --> 00:15:59,290 which history, right? 259 00:15:59,290 --> 00:16:04,200 Because in games, or even digital games, 260 00:16:04,200 --> 00:16:07,020 and extend it out to non-digital games, 261 00:16:07,020 --> 00:16:09,030 to board games or tabletop and sports, 262 00:16:09,030 --> 00:16:12,900 then it's like each country, each region 263 00:16:12,900 --> 00:16:15,360 has its own history, and people consider 264 00:16:15,360 --> 00:16:18,220 different things canonical. 265 00:16:18,220 --> 00:16:24,820 So a lot of American white men writing for white boys 266 00:16:24,820 --> 00:16:29,620 pretty much have a fairly lacking experience 267 00:16:29,620 --> 00:16:33,950 of Eastern Bloc games, even games 268 00:16:33,950 --> 00:16:37,040 that were released in Asia, for instance. 269 00:16:37,040 --> 00:16:42,500 Only a few Japanese games are sort of re-released in America. 270 00:16:42,500 --> 00:16:44,340 And they think that's all of Japan, right? 271 00:16:44,340 --> 00:16:46,850 And it's like, no, that's not-- 272 00:16:46,850 --> 00:16:50,210 that's part of Japan, and not even all of Asia. 273 00:16:50,210 --> 00:16:51,650 So that would be an example. 274 00:16:51,650 --> 00:16:53,358 That will be another problem, is that you 275 00:16:53,358 --> 00:16:55,520 assume that a long history implies 276 00:16:55,520 --> 00:16:56,870 a comprehensive history. 277 00:16:56,870 --> 00:17:00,920 But no one really has a comprehensive specific history 278 00:17:00,920 --> 00:17:04,730 with the entire world's history of games. 279 00:17:04,730 --> 00:17:08,000 PROFESSOR: And that criticism has 280 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:14,900 been put towards design studies, as well. 281 00:17:14,900 --> 00:17:17,569 I mean, we are reading three white men 282 00:17:17,569 --> 00:17:21,150 of a somewhat certain age here today. 283 00:17:21,150 --> 00:17:26,780 So they are, to some extent, myopic, as well, 284 00:17:26,780 --> 00:17:33,890 when it comes to cultural values in these artifacts. 285 00:17:33,890 --> 00:17:37,850 And I was thinking maybe we can get back on track 286 00:17:37,850 --> 00:17:44,290 by inviting whoever put perspectives on there. 287 00:17:44,290 --> 00:17:46,370 AUDIENCE: It was me. 288 00:17:46,370 --> 00:17:50,060 They were talking in this article about the four 289 00:17:50,060 --> 00:17:54,740 perspectives of, was it the designer, 290 00:17:54,740 --> 00:17:58,700 the user, where they, like the-- 291 00:17:58,700 --> 00:18:00,920 AUDIENCE: Artifact and society? 292 00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:02,580 Artifact and society? 293 00:18:02,580 --> 00:18:03,802 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 294 00:18:03,802 --> 00:18:05,760 It was sort of what I was talking about before. 295 00:18:05,760 --> 00:18:08,450 It's like someone who is very well-played 296 00:18:08,450 --> 00:18:14,580 is going to have a different interaction with the artifact, 297 00:18:14,580 --> 00:18:17,220 compared to someone who does not play a lot of games. 298 00:18:17,220 --> 00:18:20,200 You have to consider a lot of different perspectives, 299 00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:21,990 and it's very easy to get stuck. 300 00:18:21,990 --> 00:18:27,210 And the idea is, you get stuck in one. 301 00:18:27,210 --> 00:18:30,300 A creator can't see their own problems, 302 00:18:30,300 --> 00:18:33,170 a lot of the time, which is why you need criticism. 303 00:18:33,170 --> 00:18:36,620 And the criticiser doesn't have the perspective 304 00:18:36,620 --> 00:18:40,670 that the creator does. 305 00:18:40,670 --> 00:18:42,380 PROFESSOR: So that's, I mean, one 306 00:18:42,380 --> 00:18:44,030 of the reason we have criticism is 307 00:18:44,030 --> 00:18:47,450 to try to improve whatever field we are critiquing. 308 00:18:47,450 --> 00:18:50,990 So it's supposed to be a help for the designers 309 00:18:50,990 --> 00:18:54,090 to see things that they can't see themselves, as well. 310 00:18:54,090 --> 00:18:58,860 And what I would do, if this was a longer class, 311 00:18:58,860 --> 00:19:01,640 I would have you write up critiques of each other's work. 312 00:19:01,640 --> 00:19:05,240 But we're just, we have so much work to do, 313 00:19:05,240 --> 00:19:07,260 so we don't quite have time for it. 314 00:19:07,260 --> 00:19:10,830 So I don't want to sort of burden you with that. 315 00:19:10,830 --> 00:19:15,410 But it is a very interesting exercise, because you instantly 316 00:19:15,410 --> 00:19:18,428 see that people see things in the thing you've been making 317 00:19:18,428 --> 00:19:19,970 that you didn't see yourself, and you 318 00:19:19,970 --> 00:19:22,850 thought you saw all of it, because you're 319 00:19:22,850 --> 00:19:24,040 so engaged with it. 320 00:19:27,630 --> 00:19:33,230 This is also something that breaks with tradition 321 00:19:33,230 --> 00:19:39,410 of old-school literary theory, which 322 00:19:39,410 --> 00:19:42,840 used to be very heavily focused on artifacts. 323 00:19:42,840 --> 00:19:48,380 So you wanted to just look at the text 324 00:19:48,380 --> 00:19:52,490 and see what the meaning of the text really is. 325 00:19:52,490 --> 00:19:54,920 It comes from religious studies of trying 326 00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:57,740 to figure out what the Bible is telling us to do, 327 00:19:57,740 --> 00:19:59,790 or something like that. 328 00:19:59,790 --> 00:20:02,750 But that was what the academic study of literature 329 00:20:02,750 --> 00:20:08,000 used to be, as well, what is the author's 330 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:11,150 intentions with this text, and try to sort 331 00:20:11,150 --> 00:20:13,940 of just reverse engineer. 332 00:20:13,940 --> 00:20:20,120 Nowadays, we read, and we can talk about all kinds 333 00:20:20,120 --> 00:20:21,740 of artifacts as texts. 334 00:20:21,740 --> 00:20:24,650 It seems a little weird to do that, call a game 335 00:20:24,650 --> 00:20:26,100 a text, for instance. 336 00:20:26,100 --> 00:20:31,220 But if you think of the Latin origin of the word, which 337 00:20:31,220 --> 00:20:34,670 textera basically means more like a texture, 338 00:20:34,670 --> 00:20:37,310 like something that's woven together, 339 00:20:37,310 --> 00:20:39,980 then it's easier to think, talk and think 340 00:20:39,980 --> 00:20:44,250 about things as texts other than written words on a page. 341 00:20:44,250 --> 00:20:52,730 So when we interpret texts, now, through interaction criticism, 342 00:20:52,730 --> 00:20:56,750 for instance, we very much take into account 343 00:20:56,750 --> 00:21:00,800 the context it is used in. 344 00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:03,230 Because we think that there isn't just 345 00:21:03,230 --> 00:21:05,720 one meaning of a cultural artifact. 346 00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:08,330 It actually changes meaning depending 347 00:21:08,330 --> 00:21:12,376 on who is interacting with it, and under which circumstances. 348 00:21:14,930 --> 00:21:19,880 And that is something that has changed literature studies, as 349 00:21:19,880 --> 00:21:28,010 well, the idea of it being someone encountering 350 00:21:28,010 --> 00:21:32,180 the text, which you can hear in the name of reader response 351 00:21:32,180 --> 00:21:34,400 theory for instance, which is, it's 352 00:21:34,400 --> 00:21:40,250 not just about what Shakespeare meant when he wrote the text. 353 00:21:40,250 --> 00:21:45,320 It's about how a reader now can respond to a text like Hamlet 354 00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:46,560 that is of interest. 355 00:21:46,560 --> 00:21:52,730 So this is very much based on that tradition of, 356 00:21:52,730 --> 00:21:58,670 we are doing a reading not just of the artifact itself, 357 00:21:58,670 --> 00:22:04,550 but the context of use and the identity of the user, 358 00:22:04,550 --> 00:22:07,300 and so forth. 359 00:22:07,300 --> 00:22:12,250 OK, so what you have left, let's talk about a little bit 360 00:22:12,250 --> 00:22:13,015 about balance. 361 00:22:15,705 --> 00:22:17,080 AUDIENCE: So I put that up there, 362 00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:19,810 and it was mostly about, he was talking 363 00:22:19,810 --> 00:22:24,700 about how, with the criticisms, there's somewhat 364 00:22:24,700 --> 00:22:31,360 trying to strike this balance between historical context, 365 00:22:31,360 --> 00:22:34,540 cultural significance, and technical descriptions, 366 00:22:34,540 --> 00:22:40,210 and how do you, so how do you balance the different elements 367 00:22:40,210 --> 00:22:41,590 that you should be looking at? 368 00:22:41,590 --> 00:22:43,450 Because these are all different lenses 369 00:22:43,450 --> 00:22:45,908 that a different person might evaluate through differently, 370 00:22:45,908 --> 00:22:47,860 especially based on what field they're 371 00:22:47,860 --> 00:22:51,520 in that is not interaction design, or interaction 372 00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:53,440 criticism for design. 373 00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:56,920 But scientific design is very much of the, how this was done, 374 00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:59,560 or [INAUDIBLE],, how was this done, empirical facts. 375 00:23:02,380 --> 00:23:05,590 And so there's a lot about different ways 376 00:23:05,590 --> 00:23:10,570 to focus those designs, to focus the criticism based 377 00:23:10,570 --> 00:23:17,830 on the different aspects that you can 378 00:23:17,830 --> 00:23:20,470 be trying to evaluate through. 379 00:23:20,470 --> 00:23:24,550 PROFESSOR: And that is what, I think, for Bardzell, 380 00:23:24,550 --> 00:23:27,400 that is one of the things that creates 381 00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:29,830 the need for interaction criticism. 382 00:23:29,830 --> 00:23:34,480 Because that's somewhat alien to someone who is doing criticism 383 00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:37,060 of movies or literature. 384 00:23:37,060 --> 00:23:44,140 To them, it's perfectly fine to look at it as just 385 00:23:44,140 --> 00:23:51,700 something that is being evaluated for its aesthetics, 386 00:23:51,700 --> 00:23:53,050 end of story. 387 00:23:53,050 --> 00:23:56,500 Well, when we evaluate a game, let's say 388 00:23:56,500 --> 00:23:58,060 you're driving a car in the game, 389 00:23:58,060 --> 00:24:00,290 and the steering works very poorly. 390 00:24:00,290 --> 00:24:03,160 It's just, there's a usability issue there 391 00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:06,880 that's very similar to when we evaluate cars. 392 00:24:09,460 --> 00:24:13,960 So if the steering is bad, that's 393 00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:18,070 going to affect the quality of this kind of artwork thing, 394 00:24:18,070 --> 00:24:21,440 but it's a very sort of usability-centered thing. 395 00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:25,750 So games and interactive artifacts 396 00:24:25,750 --> 00:24:31,000 live in this weird space where these things come together, 397 00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:32,420 and all of them matter. 398 00:24:32,420 --> 00:24:36,280 So some of it is just matter-of-factly, 399 00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:43,120 this steering wheel is bad, while some of it is like, 400 00:24:43,120 --> 00:24:47,800 the scenery of the car ride in this game 401 00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:51,160 evokes emotions, a lot of that. 402 00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:57,100 So to me, it's what makes interaction design cool, 403 00:24:57,100 --> 00:25:02,830 because it has all of these very different qualities to it, 404 00:25:02,830 --> 00:25:08,530 and they can be foregrounded or sort of 405 00:25:08,530 --> 00:25:10,630 be more part of the periphery. 406 00:25:10,630 --> 00:25:16,300 But they all have to work in concert for an interaction 407 00:25:16,300 --> 00:25:21,310 design for the unity, or organic unity of it, as Bardzell says, 408 00:25:21,310 --> 00:25:25,150 to click. 409 00:25:25,150 --> 00:25:28,730 OK, so I guess we just have framework. 410 00:25:28,730 --> 00:25:31,290 So let's do that one as well, so you don't feel left out. 411 00:25:35,305 --> 00:25:35,930 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 412 00:25:35,930 --> 00:25:39,620 I put framework, because this article 413 00:25:39,620 --> 00:25:45,952 is a lot about developing a way to criticize 414 00:25:45,952 --> 00:25:47,100 interactive material. 415 00:25:47,100 --> 00:25:55,800 And I think it mentions how it's about developing skills that 416 00:25:55,800 --> 00:26:01,334 enable people to think about interaction. 417 00:26:01,334 --> 00:26:04,740 And so that's why I thought framework was a good word. 418 00:26:04,740 --> 00:26:06,150 PROFESSOR: Right. 419 00:26:06,150 --> 00:26:10,000 I mean, that's what he's doing here. 420 00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:13,440 So it's a somewhat ambitious project 421 00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:18,930 to sort of establish, starting the establishment 422 00:26:18,930 --> 00:26:24,240 of a framework that goes outside of the tradition of HCI, which 423 00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:29,130 is much more usability-focused, on and without losing 424 00:26:29,130 --> 00:26:34,080 those qualities, still capturing the things that sort of fall 425 00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:40,320 through the net of what that type of criticism 426 00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:45,210 or that type of evaluation captures in an experience. 427 00:26:45,210 --> 00:26:48,930 OK, are we ready for paper number 428 00:26:48,930 --> 00:26:51,570 two, looking at the actual application 429 00:26:51,570 --> 00:26:52,920 of interaction criticism? 430 00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:54,330 AUDIENCE: I've got a question. 431 00:26:54,330 --> 00:26:54,955 PROFESSOR: Yes. 432 00:26:54,955 --> 00:26:56,440 AUDIENCE: What's the difference-- 433 00:26:56,440 --> 00:27:00,310 so there are-- correct me if I'm wrong-- there are car critics, 434 00:27:00,310 --> 00:27:00,810 right? 435 00:27:00,810 --> 00:27:01,050 PROFESSOR: Yes. 436 00:27:01,050 --> 00:27:03,480 AUDIENCE: There are people who review cars professionally. 437 00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:04,290 PROFESSOR: Yes. 438 00:27:04,290 --> 00:27:06,240 AUDIENCE: What's the difference, would that 439 00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:11,100 be considered a form of interaction criticism 440 00:27:11,100 --> 00:27:11,970 of design? 441 00:27:11,970 --> 00:27:12,678 PROFESSOR: Right. 442 00:27:12,678 --> 00:27:18,438 So I think that, to Bardzell, it doesn't. 443 00:27:18,438 --> 00:27:19,440 AUDIENCE: It's not. 444 00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:20,880 PROFESSOR: No. 445 00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:26,610 Because the focus is so much on the usability aspects. 446 00:27:26,610 --> 00:27:29,652 AUDIENCE: Not on, like, the interior. 447 00:27:29,652 --> 00:27:30,360 PROFESSOR: Right. 448 00:27:30,360 --> 00:27:36,280 I mean, we do sometimes see that kind of approach, 449 00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,940 where someone is sort of trying to focus more 450 00:27:38,940 --> 00:27:43,090 on the experience of a car, or something like that. 451 00:27:43,090 --> 00:27:47,430 And that's when it starts coming closer to that line. 452 00:27:47,430 --> 00:27:51,570 So he talks about, not in this paper 453 00:27:51,570 --> 00:27:55,560 but in another sort of parallel paper, 454 00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:59,260 he talks about interior design and things like that, 455 00:27:59,260 --> 00:28:02,440 that there's definitely touch points. 456 00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:07,590 And when we start talking about stuff like the sound design, 457 00:28:07,590 --> 00:28:12,360 what sound a car door makes when it closes, 458 00:28:12,360 --> 00:28:15,120 that's very carefully designed nowadays. 459 00:28:15,120 --> 00:28:18,250 And that is part of the aesthetic experience 460 00:28:18,250 --> 00:28:19,140 of the car. 461 00:28:19,140 --> 00:28:24,430 AUDIENCE: So just going back to balance, there could be a-- 462 00:28:24,430 --> 00:28:26,430 one-dimensional, might be two, three dimensions, 463 00:28:26,430 --> 00:28:27,888 but there's aesthetics on one side, 464 00:28:27,888 --> 00:28:31,570 and usability, technical details on the other. 465 00:28:31,570 --> 00:28:35,940 And car critics fall much closer to the technical usability 466 00:28:35,940 --> 00:28:36,510 side. 467 00:28:36,510 --> 00:28:40,410 Interior design falls much more towards the aesthetic side. 468 00:28:40,410 --> 00:28:41,580 PROFESSOR: Right. 469 00:28:41,580 --> 00:28:44,760 But interior design, so maybe it's not a line. 470 00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:50,190 Because interior design, interior design critique 471 00:28:50,190 --> 00:28:55,980 is still very far from traditional literary theory. 472 00:28:55,980 --> 00:29:00,340 So maybe it's some kind of weird polygon. 473 00:29:00,340 --> 00:29:03,150 I don't think it's even a triangle. 474 00:29:03,150 --> 00:29:07,800 But yeah, it's a field where he sort of tries 475 00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:14,580 to visualize some of the-- 476 00:29:14,580 --> 00:29:16,350 AUDIENCE: Oh, yeah, the seven values. 477 00:29:16,350 --> 00:29:22,240 PROFESSOR: Right, but maybe not necessarily all of them. 478 00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:25,680 I don't think he tries to be comprehensive of what 479 00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:27,360 that space looks like. 480 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:31,710 But I feel like the paper is still written 481 00:29:31,710 --> 00:29:33,450 as a critique of HCI study. 482 00:29:33,450 --> 00:29:36,590 So that's the one he wants to focus on, 483 00:29:36,590 --> 00:29:41,790 like you guys are missing things when you decide what gets 484 00:29:41,790 --> 00:29:43,075 accepted to Chi, or something. 485 00:29:43,075 --> 00:29:44,700 AUDIENCE: But that's the context of why 486 00:29:44,700 --> 00:29:47,610 he's publishing it, right, is interacting with computers, 487 00:29:47,610 --> 00:29:51,930 in part, is the magazine, or is the journal. 488 00:29:51,930 --> 00:29:54,097 And I'm curious about that other people 489 00:29:54,097 --> 00:29:55,680 that you're describing, because you're 490 00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:56,930 talking about interior design. 491 00:29:56,930 --> 00:30:00,480 I'm thinking there's got to be architectural criticism that's 492 00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:05,100 a fairly well-established field, and the only difference 493 00:30:05,100 --> 00:30:08,520 that I see between what he's arguing in architectural design 494 00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:12,630 is the use of computers in his what he's describing. 495 00:30:12,630 --> 00:30:15,540 We're talking about concrete, and steel, and wood, 496 00:30:15,540 --> 00:30:18,870 and other kinds of materials, but everything else, 497 00:30:18,870 --> 00:30:21,745 architecture is just as interactive as anything 498 00:30:21,745 --> 00:30:22,620 built by interaction. 499 00:30:22,620 --> 00:30:24,930 PROFESSOR: Right. 500 00:30:24,930 --> 00:30:29,640 The outside of academia professional core 501 00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:33,730 of architectural critics is very small. 502 00:30:33,730 --> 00:30:35,610 So I don't think it reaches-- 503 00:30:35,610 --> 00:30:39,750 so [INAUDIBLE] said it's only the games that really 504 00:30:39,750 --> 00:30:43,230 have an established core of professional critics outside 505 00:30:43,230 --> 00:30:44,920 of academia. 506 00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,490 And I think it means he's thinking 507 00:30:47,490 --> 00:30:50,730 that the architectural critics are [INAUDIBLE].. 508 00:30:50,730 --> 00:30:54,008 AUDIENCE: I mean, that's perfectly fine to argue that it 509 00:30:54,008 --> 00:30:55,050 should be a larger thing. 510 00:30:55,050 --> 00:30:56,400 PROFESSOR: Right. 511 00:30:56,400 --> 00:31:01,920 And I also think that, when we look towards architecture, 512 00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:05,910 we're also seeing this transition where 513 00:31:05,910 --> 00:31:10,080 they try to focus more on experience 514 00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:15,060 and different perspectives, rather than saying 515 00:31:15,060 --> 00:31:18,270 that the quality of the architecture is in the artifact 516 00:31:18,270 --> 00:31:19,200 itself. 517 00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:23,250 It used to be, if you look at architecture education, 518 00:31:23,250 --> 00:31:25,740 the good examples was very much about, 519 00:31:25,740 --> 00:31:28,890 like, this is good because this and this 520 00:31:28,890 --> 00:31:30,510 and this, rather than talking about, 521 00:31:30,510 --> 00:31:33,810 it's good from this perspective, because this and that. 522 00:31:33,810 --> 00:31:39,330 So there is that movement within architectural criticism, 523 00:31:39,330 --> 00:31:41,850 as well, to go, maybe-- 524 00:31:45,290 --> 00:31:48,750 I usually have architecture students in the other classes, 525 00:31:48,750 --> 00:31:51,030 and they always giggle when I mention Gary. 526 00:31:51,030 --> 00:31:56,610 Because within architecture, he's seen as kind of a fad, 527 00:31:56,610 --> 00:32:01,995 and we have a big wonky example of that here on campus. 528 00:32:05,590 --> 00:32:09,030 So that sort of focus on the beautiful shapes 529 00:32:09,030 --> 00:32:13,120 and all of that, it's a little old school now in architecture, 530 00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:16,530 and now it's more about, how livable is this, 531 00:32:16,530 --> 00:32:23,250 or how well can you work in that weird bubble. 532 00:32:23,250 --> 00:32:27,420 And it turns out not very well. 533 00:32:27,420 --> 00:32:29,580 AUDIENCE: Just as literary criticism and, no doubt, 534 00:32:29,580 --> 00:32:31,122 interactive design criticism is going 535 00:32:31,122 --> 00:32:35,790 to go through these waves of different styles of criticism, 536 00:32:35,790 --> 00:32:38,190 and they don't invalidate the old ones. 537 00:32:38,190 --> 00:32:41,250 They just add to how we look at the same thing. 538 00:32:41,250 --> 00:32:44,370 PROFESSOR: Right, but they might invalidate decisions 539 00:32:44,370 --> 00:32:48,590 to hire certain architects to do certain flagship 540 00:32:48,590 --> 00:32:50,900 buildings on campus, or something like that. 541 00:32:50,900 --> 00:32:53,692 I don't think that choice would be made-- 542 00:32:53,692 --> 00:32:54,900 AUDIENCE: Based on criticism? 543 00:32:54,900 --> 00:32:59,340 PROFESSOR: Yeah, well based on, oh, yeah, 544 00:32:59,340 --> 00:33:04,710 that was maybe cool because the methods were new, 545 00:33:04,710 --> 00:33:06,660 and they're not so new anymore. 546 00:33:06,660 --> 00:33:10,890 So yeah, it's a little bit of that hype thing has done away 547 00:33:10,890 --> 00:33:16,230 from, oh, we can actually have computers design curves 548 00:33:16,230 --> 00:33:19,020 that we couldn't calculate before 549 00:33:19,020 --> 00:33:22,490 if they would be load-bearing. 550 00:33:22,490 --> 00:33:24,990 AUDIENCE: Certainly, at MIT, because we have an architecture 551 00:33:24,990 --> 00:33:27,450 department and architecture faculty, 552 00:33:27,450 --> 00:33:31,483 criticism must influence the choice of architects. 553 00:33:31,483 --> 00:33:32,400 PROFESSOR: Yeah, yeah. 554 00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:36,810 I mean, I think for one thing, the MIT campus has 555 00:33:36,810 --> 00:33:43,770 a lot more examples of high-profile architectural 556 00:33:43,770 --> 00:33:46,110 buildings than almost any other campus, 557 00:33:46,110 --> 00:33:51,780 because we have such a prominent architecture department, 558 00:33:51,780 --> 00:33:56,790 and through a series of styles that don't necessarily 559 00:33:56,790 --> 00:33:58,320 always fit together. 560 00:33:58,320 --> 00:33:59,265 AUDIENCE: They don't. 561 00:34:02,530 --> 00:34:03,580 A scrapbook. 562 00:34:03,580 --> 00:34:06,438 PROFESSOR: Yeah, it's very much a scrapbook. 563 00:34:09,179 --> 00:34:11,530 Anyway, that's a little bit of a tangent. 564 00:34:11,530 --> 00:34:17,560 So any other thoughts on the Bardzell paper, 565 00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:20,330 before we leave? 566 00:34:20,330 --> 00:34:20,909 We're good? 567 00:34:20,909 --> 00:34:24,210 OK, now let's do keywords for a second. 568 00:34:39,389 --> 00:34:42,750 OK, so I'm tempted to-- 569 00:34:42,750 --> 00:34:48,380 we had perspectives in the last paper, and now we have lenses. 570 00:34:48,380 --> 00:34:50,659 So maybe we can start with lenses, 571 00:34:50,659 --> 00:34:54,500 and they can describe what the difference between a lens 572 00:34:54,500 --> 00:34:55,489 and a perspective is. 573 00:34:55,489 --> 00:34:58,130 AUDIENCE: So I specifically said lenses, because perspectives 574 00:34:58,130 --> 00:35:00,170 can mean personal perspectives. 575 00:35:00,170 --> 00:35:02,540 You might have a very different perspective of a game 576 00:35:02,540 --> 00:35:05,210 than I do, because of our personal backgrounds, 577 00:35:05,210 --> 00:35:06,377 and likes, and whatnot. 578 00:35:06,377 --> 00:35:08,210 But the lenses are more, you're viewing this 579 00:35:08,210 --> 00:35:10,370 through a performance-based lens, 580 00:35:10,370 --> 00:35:12,620 you're viewing this through an interaction-based lens, 581 00:35:12,620 --> 00:35:16,890 you're viewing this through the context of a particular thing. 582 00:35:16,890 --> 00:35:19,550 So perspectives can be that, but it can also 583 00:35:19,550 --> 00:35:22,700 be through your self, or through how we use it, 584 00:35:22,700 --> 00:35:24,980 or how certain people might feel. 585 00:35:24,980 --> 00:35:27,973 There's why I specifically said lenses. 586 00:35:27,973 --> 00:35:28,640 PROFESSOR: Yeah. 587 00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:32,100 And I think, yeah, that's spot-on, what they mean, 588 00:35:32,100 --> 00:35:32,600 as well. 589 00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:35,270 It's more like, I, as a person, choose 590 00:35:35,270 --> 00:35:37,070 to put on this lens, a little bit 591 00:35:37,070 --> 00:35:39,860 like you might switch the lens for your camera 592 00:35:39,860 --> 00:35:41,930 for a particular purpose. 593 00:35:41,930 --> 00:35:49,315 OK, so did you have more to say about your word? 594 00:35:49,315 --> 00:35:49,940 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 595 00:35:49,940 --> 00:35:53,480 So one of the big things, as he's 596 00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:56,147 talking about in this paper, is how through different lenses, 597 00:35:56,147 --> 00:35:58,730 the same thing can be viewed in very different lights, or very 598 00:35:58,730 --> 00:36:02,420 different ways, or come out very differently in the criticism. 599 00:36:02,420 --> 00:36:07,730 So he has the three different criticism points of Maeve, 600 00:36:07,730 --> 00:36:11,000 and is saying at the end about how, 601 00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:16,160 just because of these lenses, the criticism of either 602 00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:21,410 the interaction, the performance, or the users 603 00:36:21,410 --> 00:36:22,850 comes through differently. 604 00:36:25,570 --> 00:36:26,290 PROFESSOR: Yeah. 605 00:36:26,290 --> 00:36:30,790 I think we should be able to jump to almost any of the words 606 00:36:30,790 --> 00:36:31,560 from there. 607 00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:37,480 Let's maybe do interface first. 608 00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:41,830 AUDIENCE: OK, so one of my favorite sentences 609 00:36:41,830 --> 00:36:47,170 in this article is that form and content, interface 610 00:36:47,170 --> 00:36:49,450 and information are inseparable. 611 00:36:49,450 --> 00:36:53,500 And interface describes how you interact 612 00:36:53,500 --> 00:36:57,460 with the information that's being presented to you, 613 00:36:57,460 --> 00:37:01,030 and can greatly influence how you interpret the information 614 00:37:01,030 --> 00:37:03,250 that is presented to you. 615 00:37:03,250 --> 00:37:07,630 They use, as an example, I think it 616 00:37:07,630 --> 00:37:10,840 was like a Java applet, the word synonym finder, 617 00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,210 this visual synonym finder. 618 00:37:13,210 --> 00:37:16,090 I actually have a memory of using this way back 619 00:37:16,090 --> 00:37:19,330 in the day, the early internet days, 620 00:37:19,330 --> 00:37:21,790 of having it in this bubble on the screen. 621 00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:28,060 PROFESSOR: Early world wide web base. 622 00:37:28,060 --> 00:37:30,120 Internet is, you weren't around. 623 00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:32,040 AUDIENCE: No, that's true. 624 00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:34,870 That's what I meant. 625 00:37:34,870 --> 00:37:39,380 Back in the days when dial-up was a thing. 626 00:37:39,380 --> 00:37:42,350 So I remembered that experience, and so that was a-- 627 00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:52,010 the way that they frame it is that experience of seeing words 628 00:37:52,010 --> 00:37:53,608 and connection to other words, and how 629 00:37:53,608 --> 00:37:56,150 they relate to each other, and being able to make these hops, 630 00:37:56,150 --> 00:37:59,027 these may small hops, but end up very far away from the word 631 00:37:59,027 --> 00:37:59,735 that you started. 632 00:37:59,735 --> 00:38:02,870 It makes language more fluid, instead of like, 633 00:38:02,870 --> 00:38:05,690 when you read a dictionary, which has basically the same 634 00:38:05,690 --> 00:38:10,070 information-- it contains words and what they mean-- 635 00:38:10,070 --> 00:38:13,940 but it's presented in this very logical, strict manner. 636 00:38:13,940 --> 00:38:18,920 And similarly, with this Maeve project, 637 00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:20,540 you can think of it as, oh, you just 638 00:38:20,540 --> 00:38:22,910 have a collection of files on different-- 639 00:38:22,910 --> 00:38:29,750 I think it's architectural, this architectural project-- 640 00:38:29,750 --> 00:38:32,177 and you could click through the files, or something, 641 00:38:32,177 --> 00:38:33,510 have it on your computer screen. 642 00:38:33,510 --> 00:38:37,910 But now they've turned it into, basically, the users 643 00:38:37,910 --> 00:38:39,860 of the system are performers. 644 00:38:39,860 --> 00:38:45,860 What they choose to view gets presented on a larger screen, 645 00:38:45,860 --> 00:38:53,050 and they also get to see how they're, like the cards 646 00:38:53,050 --> 00:38:56,290 that they choose, relate to things that other users are 647 00:38:56,290 --> 00:38:56,920 choosing. 648 00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,710 And this adds like a social element, 649 00:38:59,710 --> 00:39:04,450 a performative element, and greatly changes 650 00:39:04,450 --> 00:39:11,560 the way users can see how each of these different cards 651 00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:14,410 are, like they can actually see more direct comparisons 652 00:39:14,410 --> 00:39:16,370 and [INAUDIBLE]. 653 00:39:16,370 --> 00:39:19,110 So yeah, I [INAUDIBLE]. 654 00:39:19,110 --> 00:39:20,820 PROFESSOR: No, no. 655 00:39:20,820 --> 00:39:23,970 Yeah, that's a pretty powerful idea. 656 00:39:23,970 --> 00:39:28,710 I think that it's not just a quantitative difference 657 00:39:28,710 --> 00:39:31,440 between different interfaces. 658 00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:36,060 Another example would be the physical typewriter 659 00:39:36,060 --> 00:39:37,740 versus a word processor. 660 00:39:37,740 --> 00:39:41,940 It's not just that the word processor makes it easier 661 00:39:41,940 --> 00:39:43,750 or faster to produce text. 662 00:39:43,750 --> 00:39:46,320 We actually write different things. 663 00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:50,400 We think differently because of this word processor 664 00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:53,760 working in a certain way than we used to think 665 00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:55,470 when we had typewriters. 666 00:39:55,470 --> 00:39:59,640 It's somehow changed the world, and not just, 667 00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:04,560 again, quantitatively, but qualitatively. 668 00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:11,010 People understand texts and themselves 669 00:40:11,010 --> 00:40:16,410 differently because of this change of interface. 670 00:40:16,410 --> 00:40:20,670 And this is just an extension of that, 671 00:40:20,670 --> 00:40:27,090 where we can understand another data set completely 672 00:40:27,090 --> 00:40:31,740 differently, depending on how it is, not just presented to us, 673 00:40:31,740 --> 00:40:34,290 but how we are allowed to interact with it. 674 00:40:37,270 --> 00:40:42,570 We will get back a little bit to the idea 675 00:40:42,570 --> 00:40:50,430 of being able to interact with ideas next week, 676 00:40:50,430 --> 00:40:53,250 when we're going to start thinking about how 677 00:40:53,250 --> 00:40:55,260 to disseminate the knowledge that we're 678 00:40:55,260 --> 00:40:57,114 generating in this class. 679 00:40:57,114 --> 00:41:00,570 But I leave that there, for now. 680 00:41:03,460 --> 00:41:05,320 I'm just going to keep going here. 681 00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:07,515 Distinction? 682 00:41:07,515 --> 00:41:09,140 AUDIENCE: That was me. 683 00:41:09,140 --> 00:41:14,180 The article was talking a lot about how, increasingly, we're 684 00:41:14,180 --> 00:41:20,210 splitting form and function, and the ideas, the information 685 00:41:20,210 --> 00:41:22,670 you want to convey to the user and the way 686 00:41:22,670 --> 00:41:25,490 that you do that are considered differently, 687 00:41:25,490 --> 00:41:28,380 and that that's not a good thing. 688 00:41:28,380 --> 00:41:32,540 It's like the idea of using the lenses and the interface, 689 00:41:32,540 --> 00:41:36,230 the stuff we've been talking about, to mix the two, 690 00:41:36,230 --> 00:41:39,110 because it's often more successful. 691 00:41:39,110 --> 00:41:40,730 You want to get the-- 692 00:41:40,730 --> 00:41:42,680 I'm just going to use play a game-- you want 693 00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:47,390 to get plot information across to the player, 694 00:41:47,390 --> 00:41:49,310 because it's a story, but you also 695 00:41:49,310 --> 00:41:51,350 want them to have fun while doing it 696 00:41:51,350 --> 00:41:53,660 and interact with the story. 697 00:41:53,660 --> 00:41:56,510 So they were talking about the idea 698 00:41:56,510 --> 00:41:59,750 of performative experiences. 699 00:42:05,230 --> 00:42:09,220 PROFESSOR: That goes very much along the same lines of what 700 00:42:09,220 --> 00:42:14,510 we were talking about, with the interfaces, I think. 701 00:42:14,510 --> 00:42:18,470 Let's keep on going, the information. 702 00:42:18,470 --> 00:42:20,480 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 703 00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:22,880 The reason I put that down was also 704 00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:26,810 because of the way the paper said 705 00:42:26,810 --> 00:42:30,840 that interface and information are inseparable. 706 00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:35,230 PROFESSOR: I see you've all caught on to the same idea. 707 00:42:35,230 --> 00:42:40,210 I guess that is the big takeaway from this paper. 708 00:42:40,210 --> 00:42:46,510 And it's all, I think, the same sort of criticism of, maybe, 709 00:42:46,510 --> 00:42:53,620 specifically in software engineering, for reasons 710 00:42:53,620 --> 00:42:57,640 of dealing with complexity, we divided different aspects 711 00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:00,250 of these artifacts into different roles, 712 00:43:00,250 --> 00:43:01,540 and different teams. 713 00:43:01,540 --> 00:43:04,750 And it turns out it's kind of a suboptimization, 714 00:43:04,750 --> 00:43:09,670 because it all has to work in concert, 715 00:43:09,670 --> 00:43:13,280 or it's not going to be successful. 716 00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:16,900 And sort of trying to find a way back 717 00:43:16,900 --> 00:43:27,340 to ideas of the designer and the one actually manufacturing 718 00:43:27,340 --> 00:43:29,020 something being the same person, where 719 00:43:29,020 --> 00:43:36,100 they have full control over all aspects of it, to how can 720 00:43:36,100 --> 00:43:42,220 we have complex development with a lot of people involved, 721 00:43:42,220 --> 00:43:49,570 and still not lose touch of the organic unity of the thing, how 722 00:43:49,570 --> 00:43:53,320 it all relates to each other. 723 00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:56,590 Did performance have anything else 724 00:43:56,590 --> 00:43:58,810 to add that hasn't come up already? 725 00:43:58,810 --> 00:44:03,900 I feel like we're beating this to the ground. 726 00:44:03,900 --> 00:44:06,040 AUDIENCE: More information? 727 00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:06,800 PROFESSOR: Yes. 728 00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:10,000 Yes, if there was something that you felt hasn't been-- 729 00:44:20,990 --> 00:44:24,760 AUDIENCE: Well, I guess we didn't 730 00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:30,250 talk about the communication aspect that was in the paper, 731 00:44:30,250 --> 00:44:38,720 about how the user is in the loop of application, 732 00:44:38,720 --> 00:44:42,000 but also now, with like social media, 733 00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:44,750 you're also communicating things to other people. 734 00:44:47,540 --> 00:44:49,640 PROFESSOR: Right. 735 00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:50,140 Yeah. 736 00:44:54,550 --> 00:44:57,570 And performance, did you have something to add? 737 00:45:00,150 --> 00:45:04,080 AUDIENCE: I don't know if I have much more to add. 738 00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:06,675 But I just thought it was really interesting, because I, 739 00:45:06,675 --> 00:45:09,330 or at least when I'm designing, I think of my users 740 00:45:09,330 --> 00:45:10,740 like in a vacuum, kind of. 741 00:45:10,740 --> 00:45:12,960 Or if it's a multiplayer experience, 742 00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:15,030 then I think of them working together, 743 00:45:15,030 --> 00:45:19,860 but I had never thought of someone being performing, 744 00:45:19,860 --> 00:45:21,420 as a user. 745 00:45:21,420 --> 00:45:23,880 And so I just thought that was interesting, 746 00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:27,690 an interesting takeaway for me and my design endeavors. 747 00:45:27,690 --> 00:45:28,630 PROFESSOR: Right. 748 00:45:28,630 --> 00:45:34,410 I don't think it's just pointing towards the importance of user 749 00:45:34,410 --> 00:45:39,030 testing, but also trying to challenge your own assumptions, 750 00:45:39,030 --> 00:45:43,680 as you're having people test your artifact. 751 00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:48,990 Again, the things we create are our babies, 752 00:45:48,990 --> 00:45:54,900 and we tend to sort of cradle them a little hard sometimes, 753 00:45:54,900 --> 00:45:59,160 and we don't want-- we want people to get how 754 00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:01,540 we intended them to be used. 755 00:46:01,540 --> 00:46:06,480 And then we might be less open to seeing where 756 00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:10,680 the users or the participants actually 757 00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,950 subvert our intentions, but still 758 00:46:13,950 --> 00:46:16,590 make interesting use of the artifacts, 759 00:46:16,590 --> 00:46:19,260 and that is something that we could actually 760 00:46:19,260 --> 00:46:24,615 benefit from, from allowing and allowing ourselves to see. 761 00:46:27,180 --> 00:46:31,980 And I think just one example was when 762 00:46:31,980 --> 00:46:38,910 I was talking to game designers here in Boston about designing 763 00:46:38,910 --> 00:46:42,480 co-op games, and I was making a case that they often 764 00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:45,390 make a less interesting experience for player 2 765 00:46:45,390 --> 00:46:49,470 than for player 1, I had a guy come up to me afterwards 766 00:46:49,470 --> 00:46:52,110 saying, I've made co-op games for 10 years 767 00:46:52,110 --> 00:46:57,480 and never thought of myself as anything other than player 1. 768 00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:02,100 So if you're making those kinds of experiences, 769 00:47:02,100 --> 00:47:04,830 at least try out the different roles 770 00:47:04,830 --> 00:47:08,220 that you are designing for, and not 771 00:47:08,220 --> 00:47:11,220 make assumptions that, well, the expert 772 00:47:11,220 --> 00:47:13,590 or the highly-skilled person is always 773 00:47:13,590 --> 00:47:15,820 going to be in this role, and that fits me, 774 00:47:15,820 --> 00:47:18,690 so I'm always going to try out that role. 775 00:47:18,690 --> 00:47:22,500 Because when you try out the role of player 2, 776 00:47:22,500 --> 00:47:27,480 you might find that it's much less either fun or interesting 777 00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:33,207 than you intended for it to be, just as one brief example. 778 00:47:33,207 --> 00:47:35,040 AUDIENCE: I also found it really interesting 779 00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:39,660 how they connected performance to social media platforms. 780 00:47:39,660 --> 00:47:43,215 Because that is an interactive experience that isn't a game, 781 00:47:43,215 --> 00:47:46,320 but some people think it's a game. 782 00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:47,468 How many likes do you have? 783 00:47:47,468 --> 00:47:49,260 PROFESSOR: Yeah, it can be gamed, for sure. 784 00:47:49,260 --> 00:47:51,030 AUDIENCE: Yeah, or like World of Warcraft, 785 00:47:51,030 --> 00:47:54,960 where you create this alternate persona, or you put on this, 786 00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:55,680 you perform. 787 00:47:55,680 --> 00:48:00,300 You perform the role of knight elf priest, or whatever, 788 00:48:00,300 --> 00:48:06,300 or you perform the role of a popular figure on Twitter 789 00:48:06,300 --> 00:48:11,280 who talks about puppies, and that sort of thing. 790 00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:14,250 And I hadn't thought of it as performance before, 791 00:48:14,250 --> 00:48:17,190 but it really comes down to that. 792 00:48:17,190 --> 00:48:20,910 And depending on how much community 793 00:48:20,910 --> 00:48:24,840 aspect you have inside of whatever you're developing, 794 00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:27,660 it seems like there's more of a performance aspect. 795 00:48:27,660 --> 00:48:29,040 PROFESSOR: Yeah. 796 00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:34,830 There's a lot of opportunity for designing your own role 797 00:48:34,830 --> 00:48:41,310 or identity online than you have in offline performance. 798 00:48:41,310 --> 00:48:43,560 I mean, we're still performing a certain role 799 00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:47,970 when we're at work versus at home, and so on. 800 00:48:47,970 --> 00:48:52,200 But you have a lot more variables to tweak, I think, 801 00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:52,740 online. 802 00:48:52,740 --> 00:48:56,410 And it's just something that's inherently in you. 803 00:48:56,410 --> 00:48:58,740 It's not something that we have any experience 804 00:48:58,740 --> 00:49:02,700 from before this century. 805 00:49:02,700 --> 00:49:08,910 We just didn't have massively multi experienced 806 00:49:08,910 --> 00:49:11,370 virtual environments, and now we do. 807 00:49:11,370 --> 00:49:16,020 So we're struggling a little bit with how to design for them 808 00:49:16,020 --> 00:49:19,050 and make sense of them, but no one else 809 00:49:19,050 --> 00:49:20,380 is going to do it for us. 810 00:49:20,380 --> 00:49:25,860 So you are the ones to solve these issues. 811 00:49:25,860 --> 00:49:28,310 Congratulations.