W390 Week 5

When writing interactive material for the internet, Garrand, author of Writing for Multimedia and the Web emphasizes that it is important not to be too restrictive with the user’s possible interactions within the media you’ve created. He says, “The stumbling block…is not limiting interactivity and maintaining control over the multimedia experience…but failing to give users adequate control over the flow of information or story material” (Chapter 1 ¶ 23). I suppose we all have a vision of how our work might be received or used and we don’t want to allow the user to ruin it with seemingly arbitrary choices. But that is not the way that work in interactive media should be viewed. While David Riordan makes a good point in Garrand’s book by saying, “Infinite choice equals a database. Just because you can make a choice doesn’t mean it’s an interesting one” , I think the problem for most creators is brainstorming all of the things a user might want to do, and crafting choices that satisfy the user while forwarding the progress of the story or flow of information in a meaningful way (Garrand Chapter 1 ¶ 22).

In my experiences as a website user, I’ve often found the problem of not enough choice to be pervasive. In many consumer websites, when I’m trying to find contact or pricing information or make changes to my account settings, I find a series of virtual hoops to jump through before I can finally get to where I need to be. It’s like automated phone messages where we hope to just jam down the zero button and get a real human on the line instead of punching in our account number followed by the pound sign and trying to say “account representative” in an accent that the cyborg operator can understand. “Please listen to all the options, as our menu has changed.” NOOOOOO! Ajkffajlfajlfdfdfdjlfjlfjfjlafd!!!!!! But I digress.

I think the key to giving choices is to really think about the end user and focus more on that than the aims of the programs or even the client. What do they want to do? What else? How can we make the flow of information smooth and satisfying like a good cup of coffee? Blending good user interface with necessary content is very tricky and needs to be approached thoughtfully if we want people to read and use what we’ve created.

Work Cited

Garrand, Timothy Paul. Writing for Multimedia and the Web: A Practical Guide to Content Development for Interactive Media. Amsterdam: Elsevier Focal, 2006. Kindle eBook file.