1. Functionality Walkthrough
Current Design: Fullsize JPG | Illustrator
Layout 1: Basic Functionality
The web interface is composed of seven elements:
* You Are Here
* Search Results
* Picture Collage
* Explore Time Slider
* Dipity Timeline
* Selected Games Details
* Related Games by Concept
At the start, a random view of all games over time is displayed by platform. The layout shows the following features:
1) Search Field
2) Search Results: Categorizes results by Characters, Platform, and Franchise
3) You Are Here: Scopes to Selected Game or Pile
4) Selected Game: Updates Related Games and Game Details
5) Related Games & Game Details
Layout 2: Basic Functionality with "Explode on Mouse Over"
6) When a mouse hovers over a pile, games within the pile "explode" to reveal any tiles obfuscated by other games.
Layout 3: Fan View
7) Explore Timeline Slider that controls the focus of the picture collage for fan and spiral mode, and for random mode will scope the contents of piles based upon what was released up to the year selected.
8) Fan rotates left and right (past to future) as the "Explore Time" slider is moved
Layout 4: Spiral View
9) Spiral zooms into the past and out towards the future as the "Explore Time" slider is moved
2. Persona
Russell
Angle
Russell Angle is a 28-year-old history Ph.D. student with an extensive interest in video games. He has considered getting an MSI in archiving in addition to completing his Ph.D. In his leisure time, he mainly plays games on his PC. He spends about 1 hour a day playing World of Warcraft at home.
Russell uses visits to the CVGA as rewards for productivity. He also uses the CVGA to show friends particular games, mostly other history students. Often he brings up video games in contexts of discussions about history, which can be frustrating to his peers when they don't know what game he's talking about. Over the course of visiting the CVGA and having access to so many games across platform and time, he has become increasingly interested what other games are available that are "like" the games he already knows.
Russell wishes he had a tool that would help make it easier to get his friends with little gaming experience interested in the kinds of games he likes. He also wishes he had a tool that would make it easier to help demonstrate certain game characteristics, such as warfare, to his colleagues.
Russell wants an extensive but approachable interface-- one where he knows he will be able to find the obscure game of his choice and that offers others games that are "like" his game. He feels that an approachable interface would help validate the kinds of games he's always been interested in by making them appear more appealing to a wider audience. He wants help "selling" the games that he finds relevant and interesting and games like those games.
Russell wants a black box approach to the game suggestions because he knows his friends don't care why the games are related in gamers' terms-- he already tends to go into too much detail when trying to get his friends interested in his favorite games, and this can turn them off.
Although Russell has a lot of knowledge about gaming, he doesn't have a very technical background. However he is familliar with the history and evolution of gaming consoles and has studied how the aesthetics of games have changed over time as technology advances. His interests primairly stem from academics, but include how games impact their users.
Questions Russell has asked that he would like to have answered:
"How could I look through a lot of games and see how they have changed over time?"
"What different platforms are my favorite characters or franchises on?"
"How have game franchises run their course across platforms over time, especially franchises like Super Mario Bros. that I remember from being a kid?"
3. Scenario
It is a Saturday afternoon; and Russell sets a goal of working on his thesis for eight hours on North Campus. After working for a little less than the full eight hours, he is ready to relax, so he decides to go to the CVGA (the Computer and Video Game Archive). He has no game in mind today, but wants to explore more generally. He heard that the CVGA has a new system that can be used for searching concepts, so he decides to give it a try.
The initial view is a view of pile groups in a random arrangement, and he sees a large amount of information. When he mouses over the piles, games within the pile "explode" and reveal that there are even more games beneath the surface. Amazed by the amount of games in the system, he looks further at the interface and notices "Spiral" view in the corner. He clicks on "Spiral" and watches the piles switch places and shuffle into a spiral. His eyes are directed to the timeline slider, and he starts moving it back and forth to see what happens. He notices that by moving it he can also see how video games have evolved over time, with many more games at the outer borders of the spiral. He sets the timeline to latest.
By looking at the timeline, he remembers that he played Sonic a lot when he was little. So he goes to the search box and searches for "Sonic." The search results pull up 10 games, 1 character and 1 franchise. He clicks on Sonic CD (game) and the game appears in the Picture Collage. He notices the timeline also shifts to 1993, and the Dipity timeline moves as well. He knows a lot about Sonic CD already, and is intrigued by the "Related Games," wondering how they are related. He picks another game (Sonic The Hedgehog 2) to see what happens to the "Related Games" panel.
Russell thinks this would be a good interface to show to a few of his friends from high school who are coming to Ann Arbor during their spring break. They played a lot of games together when they were little, including a lot of Sonic. He wants to show them that there are "related games," four of which he already recognizes and one of which he does not.
4. Artifacts of Process
The Picture Collage window will show games grouped by platform, character and franchise. The dynamic nature of watching the piles shuffle from one grouping to the next will be the main source of exploration. A major problem with the Picture Collage is that with 12,000 game entries from the Giantbomb database, it would be difficult to show all entries within the window.
Hence, we discussed several additional picture collage views that would arrange groups within the picture collage space. We discovered that the time dimension is significant in most of our use cases, and providing a higher level of dynamic interaction with the Dipity timeline would be an improvement. Both of these views would incorporate the time value into the picture view.
Fan:
We discussed a fan view that would fan piles of groups (whether the groups were platform, character or franchise). The original fan artifact would place oldest platforms furthest to the left and most recent platforms furthest to the right, and taking into account that the fan would exceed the boundaries of the picture collage window, using the Dipity time slider would rotate the arc left and right.
Spiral:
We discussed a spiral view that would spiral piles of groups (whether the groups were platform, characters or franchise). The spiral artifact would place older groups toward the center of the spiral and newer groups toward the outside of the spiral. The Dipity time slider would move the view deeper into the spiral for earlier games and out toward the border of the spiral for later games.
Zoomquilt Example:
To show how the spiral view would make use of the Picture Collage Window, with older groups toward the center and newer groups toward the edges, we looked at Zoomquilt, which is a collaborative internet art project: http://zoomquilt2.madmindworx.com/zoomquilt2.swf . Zoomquilt shows how the Picture Collage Window could be used to display a large number of games.