Is interactivity always a good thing?
A key theme I’m sure you’ve noticed if you’ve been reading my posts is that I am a rather impatient person. So, if you don’t mind, I’m going to rant a bit. The Internet visits for this week were frustrating for me and a bit of a let down. Admittedly, it could be my mood…
Nonetheless, the Lost Museum seemed really cool at first, but as I started to wander through, I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. I do like the concept of a virtual museum very, very much, but I really dislike having to slide my mouse around until the cursor changes, then click, or more realistically slide it back to that precise spot where the cursor changed and then click. Then you ask yourself, is there anything else to see in this room? Well, let me slide my mouse around some more and see. Frankly, I would have to be incredibly interested in that topic in order to stick around and slide and click all over the place. (I have a similar reaction to playing Myst, but I’ll save that commentary for later.)
The Historic Tale Construction Set was a riot. I loved the style and music. Monty Python-esque. But, I had a hard time getting it to work or understanding the point. That said, it was pretty well-designed with an easy to understand drag and drop tool. But, there were no other links or any additional information about the site, how to use it, or who designed it.
The British Library’s Turning the Pages site looked very exciting until I had to go download the Shockwave plug-in, which I believe I had downloaded and installed a couple of weeks ago. Even still, I couldn’t get the site to work properly. I kept getting Shockwave error messages. Designers ought to be concerned about this very problem: does my user have everything he or she needs to view my site? If not, does my site prompt them to go and download it, does it not function without some special technology, and does my site “downgrade” effortlessly and effectively so that a user, who doesn’t have or doesn’t want some extra doohickey they have to leave my site to go hunt down, download, and install, can still enjoy the content of my site. I always try, though I’ve never designed anything so fancy. Maybe this is part of the reason I haven’t. After finally getting a book to open and making several clicks elsewhere around the site, I grew frustrated over a failed zoom attempt and left. The designers of that site should talk to Steve Krug. Or at least read his book.
Then, I couldn’t login to the system to read Josh Brown’s article (can’t remember my email password since I never, ever use Webmail), so I’ll get that from someone later perhaps? But, this is yet another frustrated effort today. Lastly, for now, the article on Participation Inequality made me want to scream. The implied tone of the title is that it is somehow bad that not everyone participates in interactive web experiences. So what? Not everyone votes either. I myself am usually a lurker, and I like it that way. And, frankly, I don’t much care what the average web user has to say about my blog or anyone else’s. I don’t want some random person editing the article on the Tiananmen Massacre, I want an actual expert on Chinese history to tell me what he or she thinks. Why does everyone need to have a blog or need to post in it more than every once in a while? I don’t see much advantage in a greater portion of the web user population converting from lurker to contributor. The only benefits I see, at least from the article, are commercial. Marketers can better target their customers, customer service can change its practices, etc. Aside from the advantage of a discount or special offer, what advantage does the user have in contributing?
I see the web as a resource, a place that makes information more accessible to more people more quickly and more easily. That, alone, is a very good thing. And that is, I believe, what history and new media is about. Not about requiring your users to participate in some sort of interactive experience, but to make information available to them that was previously unavailable. The goal should not be interactivity and participation but access to and comprehension of information. If these goals can be achieved with some degree of non-annoying, no-additional-downloads-required interactivity, More Power To It.
See my comments on Tad’s blog, Ken’s Historiarum, and on Maureen’s blog.
April 9th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Laura,
I agree with you on many fronts. I think that Participation Inequality raised some interesting questions, but I think most people are fine with not being entirely interactive with a website. I, too, am a lurker, and THAT’S OK. That said, I do think the web provides an incredible interactive forum and there are many ways to participate in that interaction. But it should be according to individual need and desire. I want to be in charge of where I spend my time and energy, no matter how intriguing or interactive a website is.
Also, I, too, love the concept of a virtual museum. I think the Lost Museum was a cool idea, but it was quite difficult to maneuver in the small screen and I never could quite figure out the clues.
April 9th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
[…] with Laura’s reaction to the readings and site visits. I posted my comment to her blog here. I liked what Karin had to say about transferring skills used in Myst design to virtual […]
April 9th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Laura, thanks for the laugh though I am sure that is not what you intended in your post. I also could not access the Josh Brown article and I did know my password. I will read it tomorrow before class in the library.
I did not mind sliding the mouse around for the Lost Museum because it was not a long visit. I am spending way more time in Myst with the endless sliding of mouse and waiting for the click. So, your comment on Myst’s similar problem was very welcome as I feel as if I am wasting so much time waiting that could be spent finding whatever it is I am looking for.
April 9th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Hey Laura, you vent all you want! That’s what Blogs are for, no?
Anyway, the main comment I had is about Nielsen’s Participation Inequality article. I would put myself in that middle group (the 9%-er) because I leave posts and messages several places but only from time to time. I rarely leave book reviews, although there are a few I intend to write this summer for some books I have read over the past year that I really want to get the word out about, some good, some bad.
Sorry, off topic…I agree with you that the tone is a bit off-putting, people can do whatever they want and if they want to lurk, they can lurk. I guess he was trying to help out those businesses that can’t seem to figure out ways to get meaningful participation and good data. The point he makes at the end, though, I really liked: making it easier to contribute (Netflix) and making contributing a side-show (Amazon). These have been gold mines and they are soooo easy. I mean, with Amazon, you just buy things and BOOM, you have gone into the database as having bought that book! Then, folks like me who are trying to delve into a new subject area can see what folks who bought this one book I know about also bought in that same arena!! Does that make any sense? I hope so, cuz it’s late…
April 9th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
I’m glad to see someone else had trouble downloading the Brown article. (And I can’t even blame not having my password or whatnot– I just couldn’t find the full text anywhere.)
The rest worked alright for me, but as Jenny noted in a random on-campus conversation with me today, I too was bothered with the postage-stamp sized display.
I think that the link between pedagogy and interactivity is sort of self-evident. Students learn a more valuable lesson when they are forced to participate in the creation of knowledge than by any sort of rote learning, or acceptance of textbooks as unbiased accounts of fact. I think the problem is that the level that gaming’s approached in the last few years is only recently starting to approach the levels of complexity that we need to make them into valuable teaching tools. (This is the theme of my post in my blog, which should be up in the next hour– please feel free to stop by and check it out.)
April 9th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
[…] Jakob Nielsen’s Participation Inequality article, unlike some of my fellow classmates (see Laura’s Blog and Jenny’s comment on Laura’s Blog, among others). See my comment on Laura’s […]