Unfolding interactivity: exploring user power through a visual interpretation model

This design research project focuses on two primary areas of enquiry -- the phenomenon of interactivity in digital media design and how ideas from outside interaction design might expand the understanding and application of interactivity within the field. Interactivity is generally seen as the user’s ability to access information. For certain writers and practitioners, however, the idea of interactivity extends to user’s capacity to shape content and meaning, extending the experience of digital media. Using a combination of theoretical discussion and design experimentation, the research explores the second perspective, proposing a model of interactivity that accepts user’s capacities for reflexivity and intervention. Anthony Giddens’s writings on human reflexivity support the idea of the ‘knowledgeability’ of human agents, that is, their capacity to understand the nature of their circumstances and to act upon them. Theories of postcolonial identity argue that visualities produced by diasporic individuals reveal critical reflexivity in the mixing of cultural meanings and materials. The research uses these ideas to conceive how users might experience autonomy, agency and self-determination in digital media contexts. Taking processes of visual interpretation as a model for interactivity, the research explores how users can exert an influence over subject matter, achieve an enhanced creative experience and ultimately produce their own content. Central to the research is an experimental multimedia program that allows users to imaginatively manipulate aspects of the work of the Chinese poet Li Po (701-762CE). While it mobilizes the cultural capital of contemporary Chinese audiences, it accepts that the diverse forces at play on these audiences distance them from the plane of meaning as it operated for Li Po. Using the program gives Chinese audiences access to a cultural heritage that is fast being displaced by Western-style media and consumer culture. The model of interaction advanced in the prototype allows for the reconfiguration and conceptual resignification of Li Po’s work, suggesting (1) the capacity to critically negotiate culture and identity and (2) design strategies to create new modalities of richness and complexity in the reception of digital media products. The design prototype provides fresh perspectives on some fundamental questions in multimedia design, namely, what is interactivity and how can designers harness it to create more stimulating and empowering experiences for users?