| Theoretical Statement Certainly the first great step in human communication, and probably the greatest intellectual achievement in all of human history, was language. Language must have existed, at least in a primitive form, for 100,000 years to date (Schramm 27). All early languages evolved away from pictographs and towards non-representational, symbolic coding (Schramm 54). This coding has, inherent to it, two forms of structural organization... |
Self Criticism As an artist, I set out to create a stimulating environment in which users can explore the syntagmatic way in which verbal language is used, and consider how that translates into a rise in pictorial time-based media. By substituting video clips for words, it quickly becomes clear that these multi-textured real-world representations are not paradigmatically isolated in the same way as individual vocabulary words are... |
Evaluation Report:
After publishing the first version of the program online in February, 2006, I sent the URL to a number of people with a survey attached. A copy of the survey can be found here. This is a short overview of the findings from the seventeen survey responses I received, with a brief description of what I did to address the feedback. I have organized the feedback into six categories, including compatibility, video, sound, interface, layout, and functionality with a paragraph dedicated to each below.
Compatibility: Computer platform and operating system compatibility seemed to be good. The only person who had problems with the program was using a PC and running Mozilla’s Firefox web browser, and two other participants using the same software on the same platform had no trouble so I have to assume the particular user did not have the right flash player installed or some other software or extension related issue was involved.
Video: There was a general consensus that the video length is within a range that allows users to experience the clip without becoming impatient to get on with the next one. One respondent did suggest a longer runtime, and two others suggested shorter. Three people suggested varying the length of the video clips. Two out of these three wanted the length varied according to how many total words there are in the poem (shorter for longer poems and longer for shorter poems), and one wanted it varied according to how involved the particular video clip is. Although the respondents did not specify any reasoning for their suggestions, I would imagine they found the video clips too short to play individually but acceptable in length for more involved poems.
Sound: The soundtrack was loud static noise for every video clip at the time the survey was administered, and nobody liked that. The users’ suggestions for sound varied dramatically. A good number of people said they would be satisfied with natural sound, but there were also three votes for spoken word, and one for no sound at all. In the end, I decided to use natural sound because the other options all fell short in one way or another. I felt that there was something left missing with a silent representation. I did not want to artificially infuse sound, such as music, into the already abstract representation of language, and spoken word would tie the video too directly back to verbal language.
Interface: Three people were confused at first about what they were supposed to do with the words, and two of those wanted written directions to be displayed at the time the program loaded. One mentioned that she had fashioned a poem outside the composition area, and then had gotten no response from the <Play> button. In response, I added a graphic on the sheet of paper that instructs the user where to drop word tiles. This graphic remains on the screen until a tile is actually placed in the correct area. This is a simple and elegant way to handle the confusion, without taking away from the experience or requiring users to close out an instruction dialogue box before beginning to compose.
Layout: About half the respondents wished for less tile clutter. A variety of solutions were suggested. Two of the most popular were increasing the size of the application or somehow categorizing the word tiles so they could be more easily accessed. My goal being to stick with an unbiased display method, I was hesitant to categorize or organize anything, and I did not want to increase the size of the application for fear of exceeding the limits of peoples’ screen size. In the end, I decided to create buttons that, when pressed, bring a random word from a particular category (ie: nouns, verbs, etc) to the front of the display. This solution is a simple way to allow the user a measure of control without predetermining the words they will see through any specific method.
Functionality: Suggestions for added functionality included moving the word tiles away while the video plays back, saving/sharing videos, identifying which word is currently playing, and enlarging the video screen during playback. I implemented all of these suggestions, except for two. I decided not to highlight the current clip’s corresponding word tile for the same reason I didn’t want a voiceover of the word, natural or synthesized, to play with each clip. I want the video to play independently from verbal language except for its imposed syntagmatic ordering, and by highlighting the current word they would be more strongly linked with each other than if they are left separate. I also decided not to enlarge the video screen during playback for two reasons. The first reason is that I want to achieve the best possible video quality without bogging down the user’s system. The second reason is that a lot of people record their videos on small consumer cameras in 240/320 aspect ratio, and I don’t want to have to blow up video that is created to be small or, conversely, require video entries to be 640x480.