As of now, how do you think you will move forward with your experimentation?
I started the semester with not a very clear idea about what my topic would be, although I have always been interested in exploring different forms of interaction. I had a rough idea about the tools I wanted to experiment with during thesis or my time at MFADT in general.
After the 2:1 session with Sven and Loretta, they pointed out something I hadn’t been able to frame till then - playfulness was the underlying theme for what I wanted my thesis to be. This was really helpful in clearing my mind from the confusion I was feeling and it helped materialize something more concrete.
When I started the 4 Lists part of the assignment, I roughly noted down the topics I feel would have the potential to explore these tools. I didn’t expect them to lead into very solid ideas right away. Making the lists and having them in front of my eyes was really helpful in forming the ideas. The writing exercise was effective in envisioning the possible project.
I had three domains for creating playful interfaces that I felt a strong inclination towards - teaching, animal adoption and accessibility. When I presented my ideas, all three were perceived to have a lot of potential. Although, during presentations and discussions I realized that choosing to go forward with adaptive technologies as my topic would add an extra layer of sensitivity towards the subject that I would need to constantly be mindful of. That would be harder to manage, complicated to find the right audiences and require more constraints which might distract me from the actual thesis.
I received positive feedback for my other two ideas but both have their own pros and cons.
The first idea which was developing a set of educational tools would be something that could be rather difficult to scope out and it would be easy to lose track of the core topics in the process. It would also come with certain restraints when considering the audiences, their technical capabilities and available resources. But the overall idea is very powerful and if developed well has a lot of potential to become a series that can then be modified for other purposes as well.
The second idea to continue experiments on the Major Studio 1 project is also based on exploring communication and learning through an interactive experience. The reason why this would be a challenging topic is that it already has a certain structure established and it would be difficult to break out of that and form a fresh perspective for the output. Having said that, I would also want to see something more come out of this project since it has been a great learning opportunity for me and has had a great trajectory so far.
I am still quite confused between these two topics even though both of them I feel pretty strongly about in terms of their scope. It is a matter of picking one and taking it forward. I will contemplate it for another day or two before deciding what I wish to do for my first prototype. I will also try finding some resources and figuring out the existing work and inspirations to scope out both the topics I have in mind. This would help nudge me in one or the other direction.
I spent some time reading and understanding how I can merge different aspects of my 3 ideas so that the final one can include the best aspects about them. Coincidentally, during last week’s Adaptive Tech class, we read some parts of the book “Mismatched” by Kat Holmes which focused on accessible game controls. This opened up an exciting prospect of looking at my games from the lens of accessibility. As a part of prototype 1, I would like to research further on different ways games are made accessible and potential methods and scopes of alternative controls. This would give me an idea about which theme these would fit best into out of the topics I’m interested in and also give me some direction and inspiration to continue my work.