Our interactive screen media project, titled Crash Course, encapsulates the qualities of modularity and variability.
The project is modular because each video/SNU is an independent fragment, that exists not in relation to or dependence of other SNUs, but as its own element that can be understood in isolation. Of course, the links between the SNUs snowball to create a deeper understanding of the themes present, but a solid basis of understanding can still be gleaned after each individual SNU. This is somewhat unlike my last project, where not every media element made sense individually.
It is variable because the user can create their own unique experience of the project (as if they are the editor) each time they engage with the project. The project is a web of paths and no path needs to be taken to understand the project. The emphasis of variability would only be expanded if the amount of data/SNUs in the project were to grow.
One of the main things I learnt about online screen production through making this project is that in a project like this (a project that is evaluating the variety, but also the commonality of experiences between people) will improve with more data- i.e. the more data, the better. This is because the definition of themes and the variability of links (between SNUs) relies on there being a lot of data. With only 13 SNUs, but still a diverse arrange of themes, it was difficult to have enough SNUs in each theme to allow the algorithm to truly pick which SNU would be previewed next. Because there was so few SNUs, I was able to know almost always which SNUs would be previewed when any given SNU was playing (as I mentioned previously).
This also impacts the clarity of the theme. With few SNUs, changes between themes were made often (even after I went through the simplification process). It also meant that we could not change the number of lives a SNU had (without forcing the user to a dead end very soon into the project) or the probability of SNUs appearing because we had so few that they were going to appear no matter what.
Consequently, I look forward to our next project and hopefully expanding the amount of media elements that we have.
Another thing I learnt through the creation of our project is that the effort to achieve aesthetic unity is worth it. I liked the fact that all of our photos in the project were very different, but I think next time we should try to give them a unifying factor- something that can visually link them. Similarly, I think we need a stricter time limit on the audio clips- they don’t need to be 30 seconds but I think over a minute is too long. Ideally, they would all be within 30-45 seconds long. I think both of these factors- more visually unified and a similar length of clips would help each SNU be more impactful.
I was happier with this project than the last one in terms of the seamlessness between media elements, and the overall design of the project. However, moving forward I would like to build on this again to make a more aesthetically pleasing interface, that takes advantages of different features allowed by different software.
Which brings me to my question as I look to the future: how can we, as students, create online (interactive) screen media that is equal parts insightful, engaging, technologically seamless and aesthetically pleasing?