Episode 57 What are interactive experiences?

What are interactive experiences?

Hi and welcome to Experience Points by University XP. On Experience Points we explore different ways we can learn from games. I’m your host Dave Eng from games-based learning by University XP. Find out more at www.universityxp.com

On today’s episode we’ll answer the question: “What are Interactive Experiences?”

Interactions and experiences are things that usually go hand in hand with games. Designers look for ways to make their games more interesting. Instructors look for ways to engage their students in order to facilitate the learning process.

Often games are called interactive simulations the same way that simulations could also be called games. But are all interactive experiences games? Are interactive experiences the same as simulations?

This episode will provide an overview of interactive experiences. Specifically addressing how they are created with users’ needs in mind. Interactive experiences benefit from the connection between users and the environment. But that connection is often nothing without control, agency, and decision making capacity.

Costello’s Pleasure Framework is identified as a structure with which to build immersive and interactive environments that can be integrated into physical spaces. Finally, applications and examples of interactive experiences are provided.

Like games, interactive experiences need to address what users need. For successful enterprise interactive experiences; those needs must align with what users’ want as well as with what the business can provide.

Often these needs are addressed through dialogue and communication with the end user. They are of course the central element to an interactive experience. That means that knowing and understanding the user base is a necessary first step towards designing for them. Once that knowledge is ascertained, then different messages can be tailored in order to create the structure for an interactive experience.

One of those considerations are how people will “feel” in the space. How should that be interpreted by the end user? Should it be calming? Welcoming? Intriguing? Answering those questions first goes a long way in designing interactive experiences for them. The same can be said for game design.

Often, designers and developers must ask “who is this game for?” before investing in their designs. Often, projects can become muddled without this question because the designer has no focus or end goal for how the experience should be shaped.

Likewise, instructors and educational designers also want to determine what the outcomes for a class, simulation, or games-based learning application are. What do they want the student to learn? What do they want the student to take away from the experience?

Unlike media, movies, television, and narratives, interactive experiences are well… interactive. That means that users are no longer passive consumers of the medium. Rather, they are active participants. Sometimes they are collaborators as well as consumers in shaping the reality of interactive experiences.

This often goes against the grain of traditional media as individuals are almost constantly bombarded by messages and other forms of communication. This makes it difficult for them to focus and pay attention. Interactive experiences address this by providing a decision for consumers. They can decide HOW they want to interact.

However that decision doesn’t come lightly. A decision point TO engage is one thing. But that decision point has to be presented in a manner that is intuitive and easy for them to achieve their goals. After all, that decision process is the heart of the most intriguing games. Making meaningful decisions  is a central element of interactive experiences. This is because it gives users the most amount of agency.

This agency in turn allows designers, instructors, and of course other players to engage with one another. This kind of engagement cannot always be replicated in traditional media. This type of push-and-pull forms the player feedback loop. Such feedback is critical and paramount to providing a response to an interaction. Those types of interactions can then elicit a broad spectrum of different responses from users.

One of the most powerful and becoming forms of feedback are the kinds which provide the user with a fun and pleasurable experience.

Costello’s pleasure framework is used to identify different pleasure principles of users and their engagement with an interactive experience. There are several ways that these experiences can be made both pleasurable and engaging.

As such, Costello identified 12 different characteristics of these experiences. They include: discovery, difficulty, competition, completion, danger, captivation, sensation, sympathy, simulation, fantasy, camaraderie, and subversion.

Users can experience discovery by finding and developing ways of working things out. This can include solving puzzles or finding an exit in something like an escape room.  In a way, escape rooms are interactive experiences in their inherent difficulty and challenge of attempting to escape from the space. Therefore, this difficulty can give participants pleasure by having to overcome this challenge.

This difficulty can be augmented further with a competitive aspect. In escape rooms, participants often need to work together to find a solution and escape within the pre-determined time frame. However, other games like sports have a defined competitive structure where one is working against other human participants to complete the same or similar goal.

Often, competition includes a sense of danger for participants as they must take on a risk in order to succeed. These risks must seem compelling in order to justify participants’ acceptance of them. That justification can be achieved by a sense of captivation where users feel that some other outside force has both domain and control over them.

Captivation doesn’t always have to be related to danger though. Sometimes, captivation can be earned through the focus on sensations that evokes feelings in users.  Such sensations can come from touch, movement, sound, and voice.  These sensations in turn can embody feelings of sympathy for the experience, or other participants, as physical feelings are shared between and among them.

These embodied experiences overall lend credence to the interactive experience being a simulation or a copy of something from real life. Such simulations are often used for teaching and learning. However, for interactive experiences, they can be applied for user engagement.

Alternatively, users in interactive experiences can partake in fantasies or recreations from imagination of scenes which have never happened. These are the opposite of simulations; but can be implemented in these experiences to further expand the horizons and the sensations of users.

Whether through simulation or fantasy, users often form camaraderie with one another as they proceed through an interactive experience. Such experiences can form the basis for friendship, fellowship, and connection with one another.

Alternatively, users can also experience subversion where an interactive experience twists and breaks the rules of understanding and operation.  These can often cause a form of cognitive dissonance for users as they seek to re-align their understanding and meaning.

No matter which characteristic of Costello’s’ framework you choose to use, emphasize, and implement, all of it must be applied in a guided – and curated – interactive experience.

Make no mistake: interactive experiences are curated experiences. They are venues and activities that have been specifically constructed for the user and to be experienced in a particular way. Commercial brands can use this to create immersive and interactive experiences that engage customers.

Much of this has to do with a basis on visual story telling. In a way, the designer has created a narrative through which the user engages with the interactive experience. A designer in turn must map out this experience in a narrative path. Along the way questions must be asked of both the designer and users such as “What brought me here?” and “What is my purpose here?”

These are similar to questions game makers ask when creating a game. What is the players’ role in this game? What are they supposed to do? How can they interact and augment the environment?

In many ways, interactive experiences are a highly engaging and in-depth series of core loops that engage the user through the experience. This experience requires that users provide input to the environment, contemplate their actions, and receive feedback in turn.  Such a loop represents much of the same aspects of experiential learning and how it can be applied in concert with games for education and personal development.

Of course, part of having this curated experience is being able to fully immerse users in the environment. This is perhaps the most defining feature of interactive experiences compared to games.

Immersion is one of the characteristics that identifies interactive experiences more than anything else. There is a clear ludic boundary between what is in a game and what is not in a game when playing table top or console games. However, the same cannot be said for fully immersive interactive experiences.

Simulations, virtual reality, and augmented reality come closer to providing an immersive experience; but even these mediums rely on users to suspend some beliefs in choosing to engage with them. Interactive experiences on the other hand are special and distinct because they MUST engage users in multi-sensory perception to be truly effective.

This embodiment of the experience – often free from special devices or inputs - is what makes interactive experiences unique. Often, the only hardware necessary for us to partake are our innate senses.  That is what makes interactive experiences highly engaging, thought provoking, and meditative.

We see that our world has been transformed around us; rather than us adapting to the world.  This immersion is often not easy or simple as it requires an in-depth adaptation and an integration into a physical space.

When addressing interactive experiences, the physical and the immersive world needs to seamlessly blend together. This means that integration into physical spaces is often key for creating these interactive experiences. However, that integration can take on many forms.

For some it is as simple as the transitions from individuals to “characters” such as in Murder Mystery Dinners or even Haunted House Attractions. Otherwise it could be more technologically advanced such as through the use of digital displays, 3D, virtual reality, and augmented reality.

That is where perhaps interactive experiences are experiencing a growth in development. This occurs though their designers’ integration and adaptation of physical spaces into interactive spaces. These are areas where individuals were able to connect and communicate with one another; but now they do so through the lens of this interactive experience.

Interactive experiences can take on a number of different applications and interpretations. Murder Mystery Dinners are a form of interactive experiences as well as Haunted House Attractions.

Storyworld represented an adaptation of technology that uses real life storytellers who bring children’s stories to life.  In addition, we see the application of these interactive experiences such as 3D and virtual reality tours of landmarks such as Rome’s Pantheon.

While not a definitive application of interactive spaces; we can also consider Google Street view a way for us to view and interact with a geographic location that we might not have been able to do so before.

While we cannot go there physically, we can recall a location based on our memory there. Alternatively, we can travel to a faraway place and walk as if we were there.

Such interactive experiences also includes access to arts and cultural exhibits. Google Street view has expanded to include experiential access to many famous landmarks around the world.

This episode provided an overview of interactive experiences. Specifically it covered how they are created with users’ needs in mind. Interactive experiences are defined by emphasizing the benefit of the connection between the users and the environment.

That connection is based on control, agency, and decision making capacity as is necessary to support these experiences. Costello’s Pleasure Framework was identified as a structure with which to build and base interactive experiences to be integrated into physical spaces. Finally, applications and examples of interactive experiences were provided.

I hope you found this episode useful. If you’d like to learn more, then a great place to start is with my free course on gamification. You can sign up for it at www.universityxp.com/gamification You can also get a full transcript of this episode including links to references in the description or show notes. Thanks for joining me!

Again, I’m your host Dave Eng from games-based learning by University XP. On Experience Points we explore different ways we can learn from games. If you liked this episode please consider commenting, sharing, and subscribing.

Subscribing is absolutely free and ensures that you’ll get the next episode of Experience Points delivered directly to you. I’d also love it if you took some time to rate the show! I live to lift others with learning. So, if you found this episode useful, consider sharing it with someone who could benefit.

Also make sure to visit University XP online at www.universityxp.com University XP is also on Twitter @University_XP and on Facebook and LinkedIn as University XP. Also, feel free to email me anytime. My email address is dave@universityxp.com Game on!

References

Bilda, Z., Candy, L., & Edmonds, E. (2007). An embodied cognition framework for interactive experience. CoDesign, 3(2), 123–137. doi:10.1080/15710880701251443

Candy, L., & Ferguson, S. (Eds.). (2014). Interactive experience in the digital age: evaluating new art practice. Springer Science & Business Media. https://sci-hub.im/10.1007/978-3-319-04510-8

Costello, B. (2007). A pleasure framework. Leonardo, 40(4), 370-371. https://sci-hub.im/https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/leon.2007.40.4.370

Daly, E. (2015, July 21). Why people love immersive, interactive experiences – and how you can create amazing ones. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/interactive-design/why-people-love-immersive-interactive-experiences-how-you-can-create-amazing-ones/ 

Eng, D. (2016, June 17). Experiential Learning: GAME ON! Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2016/6/17/experiential-learning-game-on 

Eng, D. (2019, April 30). Gamified Learning Outcomes. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/4/30/gamified-learning-outcomes 

Eng, D. (2019, August 06). Meaningful Choices. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/8/6/meaningful-choices 

Eng, D. (2019, August 13). Narratives, Toys, Puzzles, Games. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/8/13/narratives-toys-puzzles-games 

Eng, D. (2019, December 03). Core Loops. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/12/3/core-loops 

Eng, D. (2019, December 10). Decision Space. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/12/10/decision-space 

Eng, D. (2019, July 31). Fun Factors. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/7/31/fun-factors 

Eng, D. (2019, June 18). Feedback Loops. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/6/18/feedback-loops-in-games-based-learning 

Eng, D. (2019, June 25). Simulations vs Games. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/6/25/simulations-vs-games 

Eng, D. (2019, September 10). The Player Experience. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/9/10/the-player-experience 

Eng, D. (2019, September 17). Player Interaction. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/9/17/player-interaction 

Eng, D. (2020, February 13). Engagement Curves. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2020/2/13/engagement-curves 

Eng, D. (2020, January 16). How do I win? Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2020/1/16/how-do-i-win 

Eng, D. (2020, May 14). What is a simulation? Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2020/5/14/what-is-a-simulation 

https://sci-hub.im/10.1080/15710880701251443

LamasaTech. (n.d.). Digital Technology Specialist. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.lamasatech.com/blog/immersive-interactive-experiences-future/ 

Popcomms. (2018, July 12). 7 Considerations when Creating Captivating and Immersive Interactive User Experiences. Retrieved May 27, 2020, from https://www.popcomms.com/blog/7-considerations-creating-captivating-immersive-interactive-user-experiences/