“The interface is content” says Alexandre Brachet from Upian. What does this mean?
The interface is no just a way to navigate through content, it is a way to place the user within a story space, and by doing so it gives roles, it explains the possibilities, it generates feelings in the users… and it therefore becomes a type of content in its own rights. But do we know what a good interface should do? Do we know how to design it? Do we know which role it should take in our interactive stories?
I have asked Bjarke Myrthu, CEO of Blindspot App (former CEO of Storyplanet), to tell us more about his “interface ethos”. Bjarke is someone I value very much because he is a real pioneer in the world of i-docs and he keeps pushing the boundaries and exploring the form. He will be coming to i-Docs 2014 to speak about his new adventure: Blindspot, an app that will allow us to build playful and immersive stories for our iPads and mobile platforms. For Bjarke, the big novelty is that we are finally going from ‘machines controlling man to man controlling machines’ – meaning that we can finally start building tools that enhance our creativity in such an intuitive way that we won’t have to spend hours “fitting” within the logic of the software itself. This also means that interfaces are going to become more playful and tactile (mobile platform). See what other trends Bjarke is forecasting by watching at his Hangout in the UX Series.
On the other hand Gavin O’Carroll, a senior user experience designer that has recently worked on the redesign of Sky.com, tells us that a good story interface should relax us so that we enjoy the fact of exploring – far from the clicking mode that we associate with work and “doing”. Learn more about “cognitive ease” and its effect on catharsis and flow by watching Gavin’s interview on the UX Series.
And next week our last question in the UX Series will be released: how to measure impact in an i-doc.
Stay tuned, and then join us at i-Docs on the 20th & 21st of March – so that we can extend the debate even further, with you! Register for tickets here.