Narrative Strategies for Learning Enhanced Interface Design "Symbol Mall"

Recent works in the area of multimedia studies focus on a wide range of issues from the impact of multimedia on culture to its impact on economics and anything in between. The interconnectedness of the issues raised by this new practice is complicated by the fact that media are rapidly converging: in a very real way, multimedia is becoming a media prism that reflects the way in which media continually influence each other across disciplines and cultural borders. Thus, the impact of multimedia reflects a complicated crossroads where media, human experience, culture and technology converge. An effective design is generally based on shaping aesthetics for function and utility, with an emphasis on ease of use. However, in designing for cyberspace, it is possible to create narratives that challenge the interactor by encoding in the design an instructional aspect that teaches new approaches and forms. Such a design offers an equally aesthetic experience for the interactor as they explore the meaning of the work. This design approach has been used constructively in many applications. The crucial concern is to determine how little or how much information must be presented for the interactor to achieve a suitable level of cognition. This is always a balancing act: too much difficulty will result in interactor frustration and the abandonment of the activity and too little will result in boredom leading to the same negative result In addition, it can be anticipated that the interactor will bring her or his own level of experiential cognition and/or accretion, to the experience providing reflective cognition and/or restructure the learning curve. If the design of the application is outside their present experience, interactors will begin with established knowledge in order to explore the new work. Thus, it may be argued that the interactor explores, learns and cognates simultaneously based on primary experiential cognition. Learning is one of the most important keys to establishing a comfort level in a new media work. Once interactors have learned a new convention, they apply this cognitive knowledge to other new media experiences they may have. Pierre Levy would describe this process as a "new nomadism" that creates "an invisible space of understanding, knowledge, and intellectual power, within which new qualities of being and new ways of fashioning a society will flourish and mutate" (Levy xxv 1997). Thus, navigation itself of offers the interactors the opportunity to both apply and loam new cognitive skills. This suggests that new media narrative strategies are still in the process of developing unique conventions and, as a result, have not reached a level of coherent grammar. This paper intends to explore the cognitive aspects of new media design and in particular, will explore issues related to the design of new media interfaces. The paper will focus on the creation of narrative strategies that engage interactors through loaming curves thus enhancing interactivity.vity.