Tag: Ben Cerveny

Space to play

Tree by Pocketmonsterd on Flickr

The languages you’ve mastered shape your thinking. Nouns, verbs, adjectives…if you think of your day-to-day interactions on the web it’s clear the language you’re using is (very) limited. Does that limit your range of thoughts, and the things you’re able to express? Certainly, I’d say.

A quote from an old Ben Cerveny bio found in the Doors of Perception museum:

‘Cerveny is interested in harnessing the computational power of platforms like Playstation2 to create simulations with basic rule-sets that allow complexities to emerge, forming patterns of behaviour and interaction that people instinctively parse. He believes that this essential human ability to find patterns in complex systems remains untapped by current “click on the smiley face to buy our product” interfaces. “There is a certain algorithmic lightness to a basic ruleset, like that of the game Go,” he argues. “Especially as it replaces a top-down specification for human-computer interactions.”‘

That was in 2001. Game-like interactions have the potential for expanding your thinking. Stamen—where I’m told Cerveny is spending part of his time—is doing this with datasets.

Recently, I’ve been asked by several people to come up with concrete examples for my “playful” shtick. I’m worried that people expect stuff that makes a typical UI more playful. Like a sauce. That’s never been my intention.

The examples I’m considering (which I intend to describe as patterns) are of a more structural kind. When I point to emergent behaviour in games, I’m not kidding—the idea here is to allow for surprising results. Results that you as a designer have not foreseen. Space to play. That’s what sets the typical web interaction apart from something like Digg Labs.

“Play is free movement within a more rigid structure”. There is (almost) no free movement in your typical web app. That’s why I would not call it playful. These apps are designed to fit predefined user scenarios and evaluated based on how well they support them. No surprise they turn out boring in stead of fun.

However: Not every web app has to be playful, because not every web app is trying to teach you something.

In DOET Norman writes on p.124:

“What are not everyday activities? Those with wide and deep structures, the ones that require considerable conscious planning and thought, deliberate trial and error: trying first this approach, then that—backtracking. Unusual tasks include […] intellectual games: bridge, chess, poker, crossword puzzles, and so on.”1

So that’s why I believe much of the foundations of human-centered design are not applicable to playful experiences—the teachings of Norman are aimed at everyday activities. The activities that are not aimed at making you smarter, at giving you new insights.

On the web (and in computing in general) we’ve moved beyond utility. If we keep designing stuff using methods derived from Donald Norman’s2 (and other’s) work, we’ll never get to playful experiences.

  1. Norman has a blind spot for digital games, although he does include a NES as an example in his book. About this he admits he made “a few attempts to master the game” (p.138). [↩]
  2. I’ll be speaking at a conference that has Mr. Norman as keynote speaker. I mean no disrespect. [↩]

Mirroring mental models — games modelling players

Will Wright demoing Spore at TED 2007

Today I sent in the slides of my Euro IA Summit presentation for the proceedings. The rough outline of my talk is done, the most important thing now is to find the proper examples to illustrate all the fuzzy theoretical thinking. That means (at least for me) doing a lot of Flickr photo searches. This time I’ll also be experimenting with using some short video-clips. Games are better seen in motion after all (and best experienced through play of course). Chronicling my thinking on the subject of playful IAs on this blog has been very helpful in organising my thoughts by the way, I’ll definitely try it again the next time I need to do a talk.

On mental models

One idea I managed to squeeze into the presentation in addition to the stuff I’ve been blogging about so far is about mental models. I think it was Ben Cerveny who mentioned in his Reboot 7.0 talk (MP3) that some of the pleasure of playing games is derived from the gradual mental model building a player goes through. The player uses the visual layer of a game to learn about the underlying structures. When a player masters a game, the visual layer more or less fades away and becomes a symbolic landscape through which he manipulates a far richer model of the game in his mind.

From a UX perspective because usually when designing web sites and apps we try to adhere to existing mental models as much as possible to prevent confusion and frustration. This is a very valid approach of course. However, regardless of how well done the UX design, there will always be some mental modelling on the user’s part. Best make this as engaging as possible I guess. This, again, is where games come in.

Will Wright acknowledges the fact that players build models of a game but he proposes to take it one step further. In an old(ish) talk at Accelerating Change 2004 he proposed the idea that a game can construct a model of the player as well. Parallels with online recommendation engines are apparent here. As Wright points out, in games (as in web environments) everything can be measured. This way, the experience can be tailored to a player/user. He’s applying this principle in the upcoming Spore, where game content (created by other players) is dynamically included based on inferred player preferences.

It can be argued that certain web professionals are way ahead of the games industry in this field. Perhaps there are some interesting opportunities for collaboration or career moves here?