As mentioned in my previous post summing up the last three weeks, I have an interest in aesthetics and user experience and still want to continue with the focus on interactive storytelling as I am also interested in storytelling and obviously more so the interactive side of it.
My ideas include using aesthetics as a factor of interactive storytelling, so how would this influence the user's experience (or how would it influence UX) and how it plays into a part of immersion (or how it also is influential for immersion). This is definitely the basis of what I would like to do/discuss for my honours project. I originally wanted to focus on communication in terms of interactive storytelling and how this is influential as communication is a key part of storytelling, but I think since I will be discussing storytelling anyway, it will be covered so I should not be having that as a main focus as it is such a large subject and there would be so much to cover. Instead, I told myself to find something that is more specific.
Whilst meeting with John (my supervisor) weekly, he said to think of something you are interested in and it became more apparent to me over the weeks that it is user experience and then from my UX coursework one, aesthetics. It will be interesting to see how aesthetics plays part and what it means. When doing research, I have found information that links communication to aesthetics and how people communicate stories based on how they like something which leads to aesthetics so everything I want to cover should still be covered. This is probably badly worded, but in short, I am doing something I am interested in which will make it more interesting to do as a project overall.
I am still looking to do a documentary as it would be nice to improve on my skills with regards to editing and videos in general as well as allowing me to gain more experience with my camera. I did some research into what kind of documentary I would like to do, and I think it is called an observational documentary as I want to essentially give all sides of an argument. When doing research, I found that it includes giving audiences a first glance at all the important moments/points of a topic which seems exactly like I aim to do, or at least what I should be aiming to do in terms of the honours project. Within that, I would like to do a focus group or a case study kind of thing on specific interactive stories. Obviously, a big part of my research will involve finding good ones. I’d like to include them in the documentary.
In a true documentary style, it would start off with the storytelling in general and then go onto discuss interactive storytelling and how it is a new medium. That is when I would then focus on the specifics; aesthetics and user experience. Immersion is an important word and thing within storytelling so that will play a big part and be a word that is used a lot.
Next week, I will make sure to discuss with John my ideas and see if I can get the okay on it and see if I can move forward and focus on the scoping document. Once I get the okay, I will also be able to start planning my project and creating a plan as this is a part of the scoping document.
