Interactive Narrative Evaluation

Overall I am really pleased with the interactive and think it has a strong narrative and a reasonable amount of interactivity and s successful in giving the user choice. I have enjoyed completing this task individually especially as this is an area I am strongly thinking about pursuing next year and even more so after completing this task :)

Engaging the user

The user is kept alert throughout the interactive as it follows a question answer format which they have to take part in to move throughout it. They are also engaged with the use of sound to catch their attention and simulate the actions going on making them feel more realistic. The fact that there are 5 choices at the beginning also allows the user choice as they are not forced to go the way you want but instead follow a route of there own choice, giving them a sense of being in control as they make there way throughout the interactive.

Media types used

The main media type used throughout my interactive is rollover buttons that cause something to happen on the page, this helps to keep the viewer engaged and adds to the interactivity. There are also movie clips, which allow a real life element to the interactive however I was unable to create them with a control button. It would have been more effective if theis could have been included as the user would have control over them with the typical stop, start and pause choices. Animations are also used on certain pages to add to the entertainment side as well as keep the site moving and catching the attention of the viewer.

Audio

There are lots of sound clips used throughout the interactive in the form of the rollover buttons. The audio helps to highlight a change or that the button has been pressed. The sound clips also help the viewer to relate to the pictures and make them more realistic and help to move the interactive along. Some pages have audio on the main stage as well to help create an atmosphere representing what the question is about, for example the background chatter on the sambuca page creates the atmosphere of a club helping the viewer to place themselves there and make a decision to the question more realistically.

Spatial awareness

The spatial awareness is well done, as the text does not cover an image in any of the pages in an obstructive way. The pictures and text are balanced well helping to not make the pages look to full up. Images also appear mainly only as rollovers helping to keep the pages from feeling over packed. There is not a lot of white space used but the feeling of space is still kept but having simple backgrounds of only one or two colours. However on the first page the white space is used effectively as it not only gives the feeling of space but helps to highlight the bright colours of the post its.

Genre and narrative

The narrative of the piece is clear from the first page as the question ‘Can you juggle partying all night and still making your lectures?’. The fact that you constantly return to this page to choose another day means the user is constantly clear of the narrative. The narrative of the piece is the student life and how you have to balance your time and spend equal amounts of time on going out as well as doing your work and turning up for lectures. It highlights some of the decision students have to face and how they affect the sometimes forgotten side of university, concentrating on getting your degree! The genre of the piece is primarily to entertain as it is set out in a question, answer format and runs through in a game like fashion, although a secondary genre of advertising could also be shown if it was a interactive piece which was actually to be used as it advertises the most popular bars and clubs in the Nottingham student circle.

Disadvantages and improvements

Some of the pages have a lot going on and this may cause them to feel busy to the user so this could be looked at if the project was to be improved. More media types could have been included to heighten the interactivity. I would have liked to have included more animation but in the time given did not have time to look into animation within buttons. It may also be an idea to look into including audio on more of the pages especially the opening page as there is not much happening audio wise on that page. It would have also been a good idea to use navigational arrows on the pages so that the user could skip through them as when looking at other sites I found this gave you the sense of control, which is key in an interactive. Another improvement would have been to include a button allowing choice over the audio as sometimes the audio is not desired by the user however I was not able to include this as at this stage I do not have the software knowledge to achieve it.