Clive FencottSpIDERStudio

School of ComputingUniversity of Teesside

A Methodology of Design For Virtual Environments

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Introduction

• Methodology– Particularly content modelling– Integration

• Problems and further research

• SpIDERStudio

• Strange Agency Limited

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Me

• Idle waster

• Poet and performance artist

• Formal Methods

• Methods Integration research

• Virtual Environment Theory

• Entrepreneur

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

What is the problem?

• Designing VEs is difficult and time consuming

• Have to reconcile engineering and aesthetics

• Need methods and tools

• That’s why we’re here …

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

What is a Method?

• An underlying model

• A language

• A process model

• Heuristics(Kronlof, 1993)

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

A VE Process Model

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

What Underlying Model?

• Turing Machines, Lambda Calculus not expressive enough

• Interaction Machines

• Semiotics

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Semiotics

• The study of how people find meaning in the world around them

• Signs made up of:– Signifier– Signified

• Huge body of theory built up from this basic insight

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Semiotically Closed Interaction Machines

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

What Language do we use?

• UML on the engineering side

• Can Semiotics help us on the aesthetic side?

• Yes, but it needs to be adapted for interaction

• Do they work together?

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

• A chair looks like a chair:

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Interactive Content

• but it might also be:– Something to stand on– Something to fight with– Something to buy and sell– A symbol of status, a throne for instance

• The meaning paradox:– A chair doesn’t function as a chair– It does function as interactive content

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Content Modelling

• Theories of:– The meanings people make of interactive

content– The types of responses they make as a

result

• Has to be:– Multi-levelled– Multi-faceted

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

VE Aesthetics

• Agency– Intention– Perceivable Consequence

• Narrative Potential

• Co-presence

• Transformation

• Presence

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

The Problem with Agency

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

•

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Perceptual Opportunities

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Method

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Now and Future

• Object Aesthetics– POs as OO attributes of content code

• Agency at the heart of all VR– Tools don’t support the design of agency– Most tools make implementing agency very

difficult at best

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

SpIDERS

• Semiosphere: Interactive Digital Environment Research Studio

• Semiosphere:– An ecology of meaning in which differing

languages and media interact

• Yuri Lotman, a Russian semiotician• Semiotics:

– The study of how humans make meaning out of the world around them

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

What is SpIDERS?

• An interdisciplinary team of computer scientists, experimental psychologists and artists and designers

• Conduct research into theories of interactive content

• Experimental verification of theories• Practical research into the nature of

interactive media applications• Particularly computer games

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Ethos

• There are many ways of investigating the world:– Empirical science– Qualitative methods– Art practice and other humanities based

approaches– And so on

• They are all of use

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Experiments

• Predictive content modelling– Genre theory, aesthetics, perceptual

opportunities, the semiotics of interaction

• Unrealisms• Specialised experimental methods:

– Mood and presence– patterns of choice

• VR as object of study

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Methodology

• Specialist technology, e.g.. Eye-tracker:– To correlate focus of attention with

observed behaviour

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Applications Research

• VR as subject of study

• People with Dementia (PWD):– The use of Virtual Reality to help PWDs

learn new environments

• Computer Games for exercise:– Games that respond to exercise bikes etc.

• Computer Games and Older Adults

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

• University Spin-out company

• Proof of Content:– The analysis of computer games before

they are playable

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

Conclusions

• Interactive content a major field for research and commercialisation

• Content modelling way behind the technology of interactive content

• We are still only at the beginning:– Even computer games are in their infancy

Clive Fencott, A Methodology of Design for VEs

• “A Methodology of Design for Virtual Environments”

• In: “Developing Future Interactive Systems”

• Ed. Sanchez-Segura

• Idea Group

• 2005