Sus Lundgren 2013 Toying with Time Time and temporality in interaction design

Sus Lundgren 2013

Toying with Time

Time and temporality in interaction design.

Sus Lundgren 2013

How humans percieve time

Biological Time– ”in life”

– in monthly cycles (not only women)

– 25-hour days

Percieved Time– Fun = time passes faster (mind measures change)

– Flow; level of creative concentration = change

– I year = 1/5 of the life of a five-year old, but 1/50 of the life of a fifty-year old…

– Just-noteable-difference; the longer the time, the bigger a difference can be without us noticing

Sus Lundgren 2013

Temporality

Temporal: Of or relating to time as opposed to eternity; of or relating to time as distinguished from space; of or relating to the sequence of time or to a particular time

– Merriam-Webster online

Temporal: Temporal measurements, of time, time-related.

– The Oxford Pocket Thesaurus of Current English

Temporality: The condition of being bounded in time (of being temporal.)

– Wiktionary

Sus Lundgren 2013

How humans percieve time

Cultural Notions of Time– Westerners: time is linear and change is constant (or

changing at the same rate, e.g. progress

– Westerners: some things are cyclic, e.g. years (but one person’s life is linear)

– Asians: time is cyclical. Everyting changes; good can turn into bad and vice versa.

Sus Lundgren 2013

Temporality in Design

Design-by-drawing, the traditional design method, depends almost completely upon accurate modeling of dimensions in space. The time dimension, if we may call it that, is left to take care of itself. [...] To design in time is, more so than when designing objects, to design life itself, the very form of existence, and surely calls for a gentler touch than can be felt in the insensitive forms of out production-systems, legal systems, timetables, schedules, distribution-systems, etc.

– John Chris Jones in “Design methods”,

1992, 2nd edition (p. xxxii)

Sus Lundgren 2013

Time: an unexplored issue

“Digital artifacts are every bit as temporal as they are spatial. In order to perceive the whole, or the dynamic gestalt, of a digital artifact we need to experience it as a process, which is to say that we need to try it. The gestalt of a digital artifact emerges in the interaction with the user over time.“

– Jonas Löwgren and Erik Stolterman in “Thoughtful Interaction Design” (2004 p. 137)

Sus Lundgren 2013

Time in interaction design

Waiting and downtime (Seow)– Show how much is left

– Consistent response times ”better” than varibale ones to some extent, related to anticipation and rhythm

– Normally negative, some games are an exception

Lim et al: Pace, speed, rhythm– Interplay between user and interface

Visibility of time– Backwards in chats

– Forwards with feedforward (Djajadningrat et al)

Sus Lundgren 2013

Slow Technology

Redström: We need to use time as a starting point for design!

Redström and Hallnäs: Slow Technology– A design programme aiming to make time visible and

valuable:

“It should not be technology that is tiresome and time consuming, but technology that stretches time and slow

things down.”

Sus Lundgren 2013


Benford and Giannachi discuss time in relation to interactive narratives

– Story time (the time “in” the narrative)

– Clock time (the actual time passing)

– Plot time (timing and ordering of events

– Interaction time (when, and for how long, participants interact)

Looking at narratives and drama for inspiration has also been done by Laurel and Murray.

Sus Lundgren 2013


Löwgren: Rhythm as an ”aesthetic interaction quality”

– everything from sub-second interactions, like tapping on a keyboard, to longer cycles of use

Manovich: interactions are aesthetic events, unfolding over time

“The simple acts of opening a mobile phone or pressing its buttons [have been] turned into real micro-plays:

very short narratives complete with visual, tactile, and three-dimensional effects.”

Sus Lundgren 2013

Who gets to toy with time?

Writers do!– Prologues, epilogues, time-jumps,

memories…

Makers of movies and TV do!– All of the above plus slow motion, real

time, live time

Game designers do!– Time pressure, time travel and time-

manipulation as gameplay elements

Utilize narrative structures

Have events with natural order

Sus Lundgren 2013

Who gets to toy with time?

Writers do!– Prologues, epilogues, time-jumps,

memories…

Makers of movies and TV do!– All of the above plus slow motion, real

time, live time

Game designers do!– Time pressure, time travel and time-

manipulation as gameplay elements

Utilize narrative structures

Have events with natural order

Why

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desig

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Sus Lundgren 2013

Toying with Time: Approach

Lundgren & Hultberg: Temporal Themes-framework (to be explained), revised

+

Redström’s notion to start with time first

+

Manovich’s view on aesthetic events

Sus Lundgren 2013

Live Time

TV: Watching a live sports event:

Games: Meeting up for a raid in World of Warcraft or any other MMORPG

IxD: Skype, co-editing GoogleDoc

Sus Lundgren 2013

Real Time

TV: Watching a rerun of a sport event, or the TV-series ”24”

Games: Racing games, any game with a time-pressure

IxD: Real-time simulations

Sus Lundgren 2013

Unbroken Flow

Games: Games where you can manipulate time, e.g. ”bullet time” in Max Payne, or stopping time /speeding up time in sim-games

IxD: Music- or movie players, history in Photoshop

Sus Lundgren 2013

Sequential Events

Any book, TV-series or movie where story is straightforward, but important events skipped, e.g. biographies

IxD: Image stream where some images have been deleted

Sus Lundgren 2013

Disordered Events

Any book, TV-series or movie that utilizes memories, or for some other reeason shuffles the order of events (”Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, ”Memento”)

IxD: Any software that allows for miving, editind, deleting, adding

Sus Lundgren 2013

Juxtaposed Events

Any TV-series or film where events are shown in parallell, on split screens e.g Time Code, ”24” (sometimes)

IxD: Layers in Photoshop

Sus Lundgren 2013

Branched Versions

Any TV-series, stories or films featuring time travel or alternate realities

Games: Any games with levels that can be replayed

IxD: Any software allowing different versions of the same file

Sus Lundgren 2013

How to use this in design

An example: The Temporal Music Player

Events looked at are songs (not notes or playlists)

Initial state: It can play streaming music but right now there’s no database = it does not have any funcion.

Sus Lundgren 2013

Temporal MusicPlayer (TMP)

We connect our player to an empty music database. We then start uploading songs to it, which are played by the TMP. The songs form a giant playlist, which cannot be manipulated by users.

The TMP is now a radio.

The TMP contains:Live Time

Sus Lundgren 2013


Now, we add the possibility to ”jump back in time” and choose another starting point for the music stream, than just right now.

This is similar to back in the days when some of us recorded our favorite radio shows on tape…

The TMP contains:Live TimeReal Time

Sus Lundgren 2013


Now we add the possibility to pause, and to fast-forward or fast-backward songs.

The TMP is still like a casette taped radio show, but with more functions on the casette player…

The TMP contains:Live TimeReal TimeUnbroken Flow

Sus Lundgren 2013


We now add the function of skipping songs one does not like.

The TMP is now a CD-player allowing us to skip tracks

The TMP contains:Live TimeReal TimeSequential Events

Sus Lundgren 2013


We add the function to create one’s own playlists! They may add and delete songs, shuffle the order etc.

The TMP has now turned into Spotify.

The TMP contains:Live TimeReal TimeDisordered Events

Sus Lundgren 2013


We add yet another functionality: To play two songs at the same time…

The TMP has turned into a super-version of Spotify

The TMP contains:Live TimeReal TimeDisordered EventsJuxtaposed Events

Sus Lundgren 2013


We add the function to copy a playlist, and re-edit it.

The TMP has turned into a super-version of Spotify (the metioned functionality would be really cool to have…)

The TMP contains:Live TimeReal TimeDisordered EventsJuxtaposed EventsBranched Versions

Sus Lundgren 2013

Your turn!

1) Analyze

2) Decide on what the ”events” are…1) Actions = what users do

2) Elements = things users manipulate

…and the size or scale of events

3) Add, change, remove themes

4) Pick best ideas

You have from now until 14.15 – crit/discussion 14.15 – 15.00

Sus Lundgren 2013

Updates

Lectures online (including this one) + update lit questions (now with numbers!)

Deadline for the exercise Sunday (23.59)… but you should be able to complete it today

Deadline for the lit Sunday (23.59)– If late or if missing actual lit punishment answer the

extra question

Documents

Sus Lundgren 2013 Toying with Time Time and temporality in interaction design