1. Designing Interfaces for Playful Public Performances Steve Benford The Mixed Reality Laboratory The University of Nottingham sdb@cs.nott.ac.uk

2. Introduction Focus on artistic, cultural and entertainment applications as an important, distinctive and challenging design space for HCI Studying performances ‘in the wild’ Address two key themes: Uncertainty, ambiguity and seams Designing with spectators in mind

3. Can You See Me Now? A performance in which online players are chased through a virtual city by three runners on the city streets

4. Uncertainty and CYSMN Studies of CYSMN reveal the impact of the uncertainties inherent in WiFi and GPS on online players and runners

5. Five Strategies for Dealing with Uncertainty Remove – improve the technologies or carefully chose time and location Hide – structures that hide its worst effects Manage – carefully orchestrate experiences Reveal – its presence and likely impact Exploit – seamful design and ambiguity

6. Feeding Yoshii - Exploiting Uncertainty in Seamful Games The map screen. Yoshis and plantations are shown as icons and navigation controls are on the right. Near the bottom is a row containing (from left to right) a button for selecting icons, pinning an icon onto the map, initiating a swap with another player (greyed out), and the basket of up to five fruit: in this case two melons. The Yoshi screen shows the Yoshi himself, as well as the five fruits he currently desires (top right) and a seed of his favourite fruit (top left). After selecting one or more of the fruit in the basket (bottom right), the Feed button is used to feed the Yoshi and gain points. The left arrow returns to the map.

7. Designing for Spectators Consider the relationships between Performers Interfaces Spectators In terms of manipulations of the interface and their corresponding effects

8. Manipulations The performer manipulates the interface, the spectator experiences these manipulations

9. Manipulations Include Gestures Gestures ‘around’ the interface are important for timing, rest and repositioning and expressivity

10. Effects The performer's manipulations produce effects, the spectator experiences these effects

11. Revealing manipulations and effects

12. Populating the Taxonomy

17. High-Level Design Strategies

18. Uncle Roy All Around You A performance in which street players search the city for Uncle Roy guided by online players

19. Design Tactics in Uncle Roy Ritual briefing: “The bit of anxiety that accrued during the hour-long wait for my turn was minor compared to the state I found myself in next: stripped of all belongings, on my own in central London, with 45 minutes and counting to complete a task whose magnitude I could only imagine.” Implicating passers by: “Not knowing who at first was a performer and who was not a performer – everyone is a performer” Crossing boundaries: “At one point near the end you were directed to get into a car. I felt uneasy about this because you ‘never get in a car with a stranger’ but you assume it must be part of the game because of the sequence of events that lead you to that point”

20. Blurring the Performance Frame Strategy 2: shrink the apparent frame of the performance inside the actual frame by: - implying that actors are bystanders - implying props and controlled spaces are in fact external objects and spaces performer audience Bystander (implied performer) interface actual frame apparent frame actual frame performer audience Performer (implied bystander) interface apparent frame Strategy 1: extend the apparent frame of the performance beyond the actual frame by: - drawing on bystanders as content - implying that bystanders are involved - heightening the perceived or actual exposure of performers and audience to the scrutiny of bystanders

21. Balancing opportunities and risks Uncle Roy Requires extensive orchestration

22. Ambiguity as a Resource for Interface Design Ambiguity is traditionally seen a problem for interface design However, artists routine exploit ambiguity to invite interpretation and provoke reflection There are various kinds of ambiguity that can be exploited in interface design: Ambiguity of information Ambiguity of context Ambiguity of relationship

23. Summary Playful Public Performances as a new territory for CHI, revealing issues such as: Uncertainty Ambiguity and seamful design Designing with spectators (audience and bystanders) in mind The approach of deploying and studying experiences ‘in the wild’

24. More information www.equator.ac.uk Papers: Uncertainty and CYSMN – CHI 03 and CHI 04 Uncle Roy All Around You – Ubicomp 04 Savannah – CHI 05 Ambiguity as a resource for interface design – CHI 03 Five strategies – ACM ToCHI (forthcoming) Sensed, Expected, Desired – ACM ToCHI (March 05) Designing the spectator experience – CHI 05 Seamful Design – DIS 05, Ubicomp 05 (Chalmers et al)