Toying with Time

1. Toying with Time Time and temporality in interaction design.

2. How humans percieve time • Biological Time • ”in life” • in monthly cycles (not only women) • 25-hour days • Percieved Time • Fun = time passes faster (mind measures change) • Flow; level of creative concentration = change • I year = 1/5 of the life of a five-year old, but 1/50 of the life of a fifty-year old… • Just-noteable-difference; the longer the time, the bigger a difference can be without us noticing

3. Temporality • Temporal: Of or relating to time as opposed to eternity; of or relating to time as distinguished from space; of or relating to the sequence of time or to a particular time • Merriam-Webster online • Temporal: Temporal measurements, of time, time-related. • The Oxford Pocket Thesaurus of Current English • Temporality: The condition of being bounded in time (of being temporal.) • Wiktionary

4. How humans percieve time • Cultural Notions of Time • Westerners: time is linear and change is constant (or changing at the same rate, e.g. progress • Westerners: some things are cyclic, e.g. years (but one person’s life is linear) • Asians: time is cyclical. Everyting changes; good can turn into bad and vice versa.

5. Temporality in Design • Design-by-drawing, the traditional design method, depends almost completely upon accurate modeling of dimensions in space. The time dimension, if we may call it that, is left to take care of itself. [...] To design in time is, more so than when designing objects, to design life itself, the very form of existence, and surely calls for a gentler touch than can be felt in the insensitive forms of out production-systems, legal systems, timetables, schedules, distribution-systems, etc. • John Chris Jones in “Design methods”, 1992, 2nd edition (p. xxxii)

6. Time: an unexplored issue • “Digital artifacts are every bit as temporal as they are spatial. In order to perceive the whole, or the dynamic gestalt, of a digital artifact we need to experience it as a process, which is to say that we need to try it. The gestalt of a digital artifact emerges in the interaction with the user over time.“ • – Jonas Löwgren and Erik Stolterman in “Thoughtful Interaction Design” (2004 p. 137)

7. Time in interaction design • Waiting and downtime (Seow) • Show how much is left • Consistent response times ”better” than varibale ones to some extent, related to anticipation and rhythm • Normally negative, some games are an exception • Lim et al: Pace, speed, rhythm • Interplay between user and interface • Visibility of time • Backwards in chats • Forwards with feedforward (Djajadningrat et al)

8. Slow Technology • Redström: We need to use time as a starting point for design! • Redström and Hallnäs: Slow Technology • A design programme aiming to make time visible and valuable: • “It should not be technology that is tiresome and time consuming, but technology that stretches time and slow things down.”

9. Time in interaction design • Benford and Giannachi discuss time in relation to interactive narratives • Story time (the time “in” the narrative) • Clock time (the actual time passing) • Plot time (timing and ordering of events • Interaction time (when, and for how long, participants interact) • Looking at narratives and drama for inspiration has also been done by Laurel and Murray.

10. Time in interaction design • Löwgren: Rhythm as an ”aesthetic interaction quality” • everything from sub-second interactions, like tapping on a keyboard, to longer cycles of use • Manovich: interactions are aesthetic events, unfolding over time • “The simple acts of opening a mobile phone or pressing its buttons [have been] turned into real micro-plays: very short narratives complete with visual, tactile, and three-dimensional effects.”

11. Who gets to toy with time? • Writers do! • Prologues, epilogues, time-jumps, memories… • Makers of movies and TV do! • All of the above plus slow motion, real time, live time • Game designers do! • Time pressure, time travel and time-manipulation as gameplay elements Utilize narrative structures Have events with natural order

12. Who gets to toy with time? • Writers do! • Prologues, epilogues, time-jumps, memories… • Makers ofmovies and TV do! • All of the above plus slow motion, real time, live time • Game designers do! • Timepressure, timetravel and time-manipulation as gameplay elements Why not interaction designers? Utilize narrative structures Have events with natural order

13. Toying with Time: Approach • Lundgren & Hultberg: Temporal Themes-framework (to be explained), revised • + • Redström’s notion to start with time first • + • Manovich’s view on aesthetic events

14. Live Time • TV: Watching a live sports event: • Games: Meeting up for a raid in World of Warcraft or any other MMORPG • IxD: Skype, co-editing GoogleDoc

15. Real Time • TV: Watching a rerun of a sport event, or the TV-series ”24” • Games: Racing games, any game with a time-pressure • IxD: Real-time simulations

16. Unbroken Flow • Games: Games where you can manipulate time, e.g. ”bullet time” in Max Payne, or stopping time /speeding up time in sim-games • IxD: Music- or movie players, history in Photoshop

17. Sequential Events • Any book, TV-series or movie where story is straightforward, but important events skipped, e.g. biographies • IxD: Image stream where some images have been deleted

18. Disordered Events • Any book, TV-series or movie that utilizes memories, or for some other reeason shuffles the order of events (”Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, ”Memento”) • IxD: Any software that allows for miving, editind, deleting, adding

19. Juxtaposed Events • Any TV-series or film where events are shown in parallell, on split screens e.g Time Code, ”24” (sometimes) • IxD: Layers in Photoshop

20. Branched Versions • Any TV-series, stories or films featuring time travel or alternate realities • Games: Any games with levels that can be replayed • IxD: Any software allowing different versions of the same file

21. How to use this in design • An example: The Temporal Music Player • Events looked at are songs (not notes or playlists) • Initial state: It can play streaming music but right now there’s no database = it does not have any funcion.

22. Temporal MusicPlayer (TMP) • We connect our player to an empty music database. We then start uploading songs to it, which are played by the TMP. The songs form a giant playlist, which cannot be manipulated by users. • The TMP is now a radio. The TMP contains: Live Time

23. Temporal MusicPlayer (TMP) • Now, we add the possibility to ”jump back in time” and choose another starting point for the music stream, than just right now. • This is similar to back in the days when some of us recorded our favorite radio shows on tape… The TMP contains: Live Time Real Time

24. Temporal MusicPlayer (TMP) • Now we add the possibility to pause, and to fast-forward or fast-backward songs. • The TMP is still like a casette taped radio show, but with more functions on the casette player… The TMP contains: Live Time Real Time Unbroken Flow

25. Temporal MusicPlayer (TMP) • We now add the function of skipping songs one does not like. • The TMP is now a CD-player allowing us to skip tracks The TMP contains: Live Time Real Time Sequential Events

26. Temporal MusicPlayer (TMP) • We add the function to create one’s own playlists! They may add and delete songs, shuffle the order etc. • The TMP has now turned into Spotify. The TMP contains: Live Time Real Time Disordered Events

27. Temporal MusicPlayer (TMP) • We add yet another functionality: To play two songs at the same time… • The TMP has turned into a super-version of Spotify The TMP contains: Live Time Real Time Disordered EventsJuxtaposed Events

28. Temporal MusicPlayer (TMP) • We add the function to copy a playlist, and re-edit it. • The TMP has turned into a super-version of Spotify (the metioned functionality would be really cool to have…) The TMP contains: Live Time Real Time Disordered EventsJuxtaposed Events Branched Versions

29. Your turn! • Analyze • Decide on what the ”events” are… • Actions = whatusers do • Elements = thingsusers manipulate • …and the size or scaleofevents • 3) Add, change, removethemes • 4) Pick best ideas • Youhave from nowuntil 14.15 – crit/discussion 14.15 – 15.00

30. Updates • Lectures online (including this one) + update lit questions (now with numbers!) • Deadline for the exercise Sunday (23.59)… but you should be able to complete it today • Deadline for the lit Sunday (23.59) • If late or if missing actual lit punishment  answer the extra question