Gaming and Human-Computer Interaction


Gaming

...

When children pick up a new video game, they know very little about the game. They know little about the world the game operates in: the rules of the world, the rules of their characters, or the rules of interaction in that world. They don't know what problems they have to solve to advance through the world, and in many cases they don't even know how to solve those problems ahead of time.

Yet to win (and that is the goal of most video games), they must learn those rules, master those rules, learn the problems, solve the problems, and fail several times before finally succeeding.

This is the basis of today's most successful educational games. Those that do this well are so ingeniously designed, so pedagogically efficient, that they take children from beginner to master grade in 40 to 60 hours (the standard amount of time a game plays). They force players to fail dozens of times before achieving ultimate success, but they are so inspiring and so engaging that the students solve the problems on their own, actively ask friends for help, and even do research to find answers.”

  1. Active, Critical Learning Principle -[In a video game] all aspects of the learning environment are set up to encourage active and critical, not passive, learning.

  2. "Psychosocial Moratorium" Principle -[In a video game] learners can take risks in a space where real-world consequences (i.e., grades, risk of looking silly) are lowered.

  3. Achievement Principle -[In a video game] there are intrinsic rewards from the beginning, which are customized to each learner's level, effort, and growing mastery and signal the learner's ongoing achievements.

  4. Practice Principle -[In a video game] learners get lots and lots of practice in a context where practice is not boring (i.e., in a virtual world that is compelling to learners on their own terms and where the learners experience ongoing success). They spend lots of time on task.

  5. Multimodal Principle -[In a video game] meaning and knowledge are built up through various modalities (images, texts, symbols, interactions, abstract design, sound, etc.), not just words.

These are only five of the 36 principals documented by [James Paul Gee, the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University, and the author of the book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy], but they make clear how video game systems can actually translate into tremendously powerful and flexible learning systems.”

 

 

Links 

 

Richard E. Rubin on User Experience

Rubin, Richard E. "User Experience Design." Foundations of Library and Information Science. New York: Neal-Schuman, 2010. 295-98. Print.First impressions are formed in 50 milliseconds. User Experience (UX) isn’t just about user-friendly, but the architect’s “conscious, explicit intent.” Predict your user’s information-seeking behaviors.

Human-Computer Interaction and User Interface

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNkA Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work, Intuitive, Gesture-based computing, Ubiquitous computing.

Ergonomics.org - Posture, Motion and Ergonomics

www.peakphysiotherapy.com/wp/services/occupational-health/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STErcgzr_XwA good chair has a flat seat and allows the lower back to curve naturally, while supporting the upper back. Screens should be just below eye level, about an arm’s length away. Wrists should remain supported and relaxed, not angled.

Introduction to Web Accessibility

http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/glance/https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesvaVXWeb accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web.” Provide text alternatives (captions) to multimedia content. Make pages compatible with assistive tools such as screen readers. Make content easy to comprehend and operate predictably.But accessibility isn’t just about the disabled. “When software -- or idea-ware for that matter -- fails to be accessible to anyone for any reason, it is the fault of the software or of the messaging of the idea. It is an Accessibility failure.” --Steve Yegge, Google

Next Generation Catalogs

Hofmann, M. A., & Yang, S. Q. (2011). How Next-Gen R U? A Review of Academic OPACS in the United States and Canada. Computers In Libraries, 31(6), 26-29.Federated search including articles and ebooks, State-of the art (50% aren’t), Cover art, User-driven content such as comments and ratings, “Did you mean...” suggestions, Social network integration, Stable URLs.

 

 

Click here to return to the FrontPage