Poster

Enriching Interactive Experience in a Chinese Context

Pai-Ling Chang

This design research explores the phenomenon of interactivity in digital media design. Interactivity is generally seen as the user's ability to access information. For certain writers and designers, however, interactivity extends to users' capacity to shape content and meaning, extending the experience of digital media. Through the combination of design experimentation and theoretical discussion the research proposes a model of interactivity that supports users' capacities for reflexivity and invention. In the wake of poststructuralism, computer and digitally networked technologies are seen to challenge traditions of stable, a priori authorship by allowing users to construct meaning from the range of available content. Anthony Giddens's writings support the idea of the "knowledgeability" of human agents, that is, their capacity to understand their circumstances and to act upon them. Theories of postcolonial identity argue that visualities created by diasporic individuals reveal critical awareness and productivity in the mixing of cultural meanings and materials. The basis for synthesizing these ideas is the overarching research question of how users might experience autonomy, agency and self-determination in digital media contexts through the practice of interaction and interface design.

Central to the research is an experimental multimedia program that allows users to imaginatively manipulate aspects of the work of the Chinese poet Li Po (701-762CE). While it mobilizes the cultural capital of contemporary Chinese audiences, it accepts that the diverse forces at play on these audiences distance them from the plane of meaning as it operated for Li Po. Using the program gives Chinese audiences access to a cultural heritage rapidly being displaced by Western-style media and consumer culture. The design prototype allows users to exert an influence over subject matter through the reconfiguration of Li Po’s work, suggesting the capacity to critically negotiate culture and identity while identifying design strategies that create new modalities of richness and complexity in the use of digital media products. The design prototype provides fresh perspectives on some fundamental questions in multimedia design, namely, what is interactivity and how can designers harness it to create more stimulating and empowering experiences for users?