OTHELLO - THE INTERACTIVE GUIDE
This CD-ROM title was developed in 1996 by film distribution company, Castle Rock, a subsidiary of Turner, using primary source material from their two hour film version starring Laurence Fishburne and Kenneth Branagh. It was the company’s first venture into electronic publishing and has since been followed by a version of Hamlet. It is immediately apparent that this title comes from a film rather than publishing base. The two minute opening title sequence is taken directly from film convention, opening as it does with the company logo supported by fanfare and moving on to a title sequence of quick mixes and dissolves between close-ups of the main protagonists. The colour film clips are intermixed with rostrum camera stills of black and white engravings supported by sound clips ‘that I have taken away this old man’s daughter, tis most true..’ which are not quite audible as they are competing with the background title music. Whilst being attention grabbing and visually very effective, the battle of the sound elements leaves the meaning of this opening rather confused. A further title card appears , followed by the interface below:
The producers, in sympathy with a certain fashion currently prevalent in CD ROM educational material, have inserted a ‘groundling guide’ into the overview at the interface. The guides metaphor first emerged in 1989 when Oren, Saloman, Kreitman and Don found that authors of hypertext that was used in an educational setting were faced with severe challenges and that whilst the ‘author’s purpose may be to provide an educational experience...the cognitive load posed by navigating among the various items may be so great that the user has little energy left for absorbing the content’.[1] A guide was therefore provided to simplify the need for the user to make navigational decisions. It was felt that the ‘guides’ should always try to hint at the narrative (and) could relinearise the feel of the database. The guide was intended as the ‘central figure (who) would introduce users to interesting stories and to other people- who would accompany the user on his travels.’[2]
The guide is not used to this effect in Othello, rather he is placed in modern dress (research suggests that theatrical conventions do not prepare an audience to be suddenly confronted with an actor out of costume[3]) and in mock -Elizabethan drawl intermixed with heavy west-coast speak we are welcomed to the ‘in-eractive guide.’ While it is a relief to know that ‘click about my person and I will disappear, as if lost in time’ the user is faced with a meaningless overview, further muddied rather than clarified by the guide. As Don noted , ‘though the role we had assigned the guide was navigational only, users wanted (them) to deliver content too.’ [4] Not only are we disappointed at the guide’s role which is simply to point, but his very existence takes away some of the user’s control over presentation- we cannot rewind - only stop them in order to move on. It is my premise that the presence of the guide is indicative that the overview fails at the most fundamental level in its design and concept.
The guide’s irritating mock-Elizabethan drawl is also used in the Trivia Game, which summed up, is indeed trivial. The game is set out as a multi-choice board on which twelve topics are displayed. Clicking on a topic produces a question with three possible answers.
Players failing to select the right answers are rewarded with boos and hisses by an unseen mob, whereas correct answers are met with patronising phrases such as ‘ye knows him well’ and cheers. An opportunity is lost for a game involving role playing, to borrow from the narrative of interactive games, which point the way towards a new form of highly interactive user-directed hyperdrama, fusing linear narrative with interactive plot creation.[5]
An existing knowledge of the play is insisted upon by the choice of the three main sites which are London, Venice and Cyprus. The division of material within these three sites is the most serious difficulty with which the narrative struggles. London is selected for information pertaining to Elizabethan England, with shallow detail of English society, Shakespearean English, Iambic pentameter, history, religion , politics plays and printing. Additionally under another menu we are offered comments on the life of Shakespeare, works of Shakespeare (list only), theories about the bard and his haunts (which include modern day colour photographs of his birthplace).The third element of this site offers Quicktime VR of the exterior of the Globe theatre, complete with scaffolding, and 360 degree shots of St Margaret’s Church. London alone is exhausting but not hugely informative or entertaining.
Moving onto the Venice site, the user navigates a virtual world of canals wherein a ‘history of Othello’ is given, alongside film adaptations of the play, accessed from hotspots on playbills on canal-side walls. The metaphors used are mystifying. The making of Castle Rock’s ‘Othello’ makes up the major element of this site and the play is also located , almost as an afterthought here. Finally at the Cyprus site we are introduced to the themes of Othello,modern day video sequences and an Othello rap. The notion that ‘the play’s the thing’ is certainly well and truly quashed. The play could not be further from the designer’s mind. There is a sea of muddled clusters of unrelated information. The narrative which one expects to include ‘both the story being told (content) and the condition of it’s telling( structure and context) is destroyed. Creating a multimedia title involves selecting or generating information effectively as well as representing the structure and content through the interface.’[6]This is a prime example of these activities occurring separately.
Effective interface metaphors could have been used to anchor the users to something with which they were already familiar- a book, a theatre curtain, a timeline and so on. Further, hypertext has been virtually ignored. As regards user perception, hypertext links would perhaps have provided the very linking between sites that would have eliminated the necessity for long menus and brought many of the elements of the database closer together . The use of hypertext linking would have prevented the feeling that much ‘so called’ information is virtually inaccessible, ‘not only because there is so much of it, but also because the many types of information formats and delivery systems are not integrated at the interface.’[7]Researchers have found that when people perceive even the simplest relatedness among items, they will often assume, or unconsciously superimpose narrative structure on the material. A problem with menus is that they insist on what the designer thought of allowing you to do, whereas hypertext would have allowed a combination and filtering in a meaningful way. The limited hypertext links in this title other than in the play and it’s glossary, exist only to highlight the availability of an image of a mentioned character, rather than to signify supplementary information.
The title, whilst not claiming to be educational, nor indeed edutainment, contains within it a study guide, which suggests some pretension in this direction. It gives neither a suggested user profile nor a choice of profiles for this site. There is a loss of opportunity here, both in terms of offering a range of levels of difficulty at which the study might be conducted and in making the ‘educational’ element so insignificant, the producers lose a valuable market in which to recoup their investment.
It is perfectly possible to avoid reading the play altogether in this CD ROM as the text is not located close enough to the other study elements. Linking it with the film is inappropriate when at no point is the text put alongside the action. Moreover, the more non-textual clips in an application, the greater the likelihood that the students may flick through the application ignoring any text and playing any clips (they) come across- the equivalent of browsing through the book, looking at the pictures.[8]
Whilst students may learn from a multimedia title when left alone to explore it, it has been found that’ the learning process is greatly enhanced when certain goals or requirements are made clear prior to the student accessing the programme.[9] Castle Rock subscribe to the view that the teacher should become ‘the mediator, a facilitator and less a dispenser of knowledge’ and whilst the student might learn at a shallow level about Elizabethan England, the construction of the Globe and so on the danger is that in packaging the information they are ‘performing the necessary legwork for the student...part of the learning process, and some would argue, the most important part happens in the act of acquiring the needed information. Doing teaches.[10] Castle Rock’s Study Guide makes only a gesture towards this. The inability to place the elements in a relational way destroys the process of learning.
The use of film clips both as comparative performance pieces and as modern day interpretation of the roles is effective to a degree. Unfortunately the producers were able only to compare and contrast a few scenes and even then not all of the versions are contained in the CD ROM.
The learning process would have been further enhanced had a window containing the relevant text scrolled alongside the video been offered rather than simply the act and scene number. The placement of each sequence within the play was difficult to make without a navigation bar.
The possibility of being able to take notes alongside would also have been useful. Irritatingly it was necessary to constantly open and close windows to make a meaningful comparison.
The Castle Rock Othello film version offered is the site at which the producers obviously have the most raw material. Insights are offered into the making of the film, the publicity campaign the stars, the locations and the technicians. There are interviews with the actors, although of the twelve actors featured only Othello, Iago, and Cassio are interviewed. Why not Desdemona? In almost every instance, expectation is not matched with content. The element that promises location photography produces a paltry three stills and a few drawings.- It either worth providing content or eliminating sites. There is no point whatsoever, particularly when copyright is not an issue, in offering teasers only. It is fatal to raise user expectation only to dash it. Similarly, the user is implored to visit the internet site in ‘Shakespeare’s Lounge’, only to discover that the site is not active. This is poor practise.
Overall, as regards the graphic design, ‘the computer environment appears to remain stable, understandable and familiar’.[11] This is thanks to a consistent and careful use of colour and layout throughout the screens and menus. There is only one occasion on which the layout is transposed and this must be assumed to be an error. Occasionally also sound icons are offered one screen before they are required which is puzzling.
Not withstanding the above, the text is ,however, almost always difficult to read. It is placed on a background of parchment on a scrolling screen - the attention given to the parchment on occasions is rather too authentic with too many creases and too much discolouration! In addition to the above problems, some of the long passages of text are coloured red. This highlighting of the text indicates that the user may locate the loud speaker icon to have the passage read aloud- a totally unimportant event because unfortunately, the highlighted text is not significant in any way- it is just the opening paragraph of a lengthy scrolling text. The sound is added as a device to add interest not intent.
It is said that sound is the cheapest easiest analogue to digitise. Castle Rock have taken this to heart and provided non stop music. The theme music is present throughout- ceasing only when other sound, either interview or voice over, is offered as a user -controlled device. The insistence on continuous sound is intensely irritating, not least because the user is denied a fundamental right of choice. Moreover, when we reach the music element within the ‘making of the film’, we are offered limited scores to view, with, yes...the very same theme!
Overall, the source material is of a high quality, but the content has been badly structured and managed. The navigation is straight forward in terms of ease of use even if the content is chaotic. Certainly this title is interactive in terms of ample opportunity to click on buttons. However, it must be of greatest concern that the relevance of the structure and linking is so poor that if an educational intent were present then some students may never find the play. The user, lost in Elizabethan time often finds it difficult to return to the overview without backtracking through all of the sites previously viewed. The ‘three step rule’[12] is unheard of in this title.
If going back is a problem, then quit is well nigh impossible! The film metaphor is again misused-used with a lengthy credit sequence on five single cards rather than on a scrolling bar, again in the style of the opening sequence, this end sequence lasts nearly two minutes. [see appendix 1] . Whilst the producers are to be congratulated for their adherence to copyright clearance and acknowledgement of source material, the user becomes desperate for escape. It may be that this form of credit becomes more common as contributors become more aware of the implication of providing images for digital use.
In conclusion, whilst this application has certain technical virtuosity, as educational software it fails on the quality of it’s content. The producers have not kept in mind nor defined the intended audience, rather they have created this CD ROM with the sole intent of creating additional revenue from the film and seemingly have neither the experience nor the desire to create an educational package. Elements are taken from games, from film, and from publishing but it is neither educational nor is it edutainment- it is less than the sum of its parts.
[1]- [4] &[6] in Ed. Laurel B The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design Addison Wesley 1990
[1] Don A.,Oren T., Kreitman K., Salomon G
Guides- Characterizing the Interface
[5] Cotton B., Oliver R Understanding Hypermedia Phaidon 1993
[6] Don A. Narrative and the Interface
[7] Mountford SJ Tools and Techniques for Creative Design
[8] Riley F Understanding IT: Developing Multimedia Courseware The University of Hull
[9] Tway Multimedia in Action Academic Press 1995
[10] Gilster P Digital Literacy Wiley1997
[11] Iuppa N.V.,Wade M The Multimedia Adventure
[12] Delaney P., Landow G The Rhetoric of Hypermedia: Some rules for Authors in Hypermedia and Literary Studies MIT Press 1994
Cotton B., Oliver R Understanding Hypermedia Phaidon 1993
Cox K., Walker D User Interface Design Prentice Hall 1993
Delaney P.Landow G Hypermedia and Literary Studies MIT Press 1994
Gilster P Digital Literacy Wiley 1997
Gaines B., Shaw M. The Art of Computer Conversation Prentice Hall 1984
Iuppa N V. Wade M The Multimedia Adventure Knowledge Industry Publications 1993
Laurel B The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design Addison Wesley 1990
Laurel B Computers as Theatre Addison Wesley 1993
Lopuck L. Designing Multimedia Peachpit Press 1996
Riley F Understanding IT: Developing Multimedia Courseware The University of Hull 1995
Ressler S Art of Electronic Publishing: Internet and Beyond Prentice Hall 1997
Tway L Multimedia in Action Academic Press 1995
Vaughan T Multimedia -Making it Work McGraw-Hill 1996
An abstract from this essay, first published in OUTLINE, Spring 1998, can be read at
The Public Monuments and Sculpture Association Web site
CASTLE PARK - PUBLIC ART IN PRACTICE
The public art project at the historic Castle Park site in Bristol was commissioned by the City Council in 1992 and involved over twenty artists. The CD ROM was produced by Derrick Price, Sue Swingler and Martin Rieser as a result of a study between 1993 and 1995, initiated and funded by the Faculty of Art, Media and Design at the University of the West of England. It was designed and produced by Andrew Bourne of 4:2:2 Video Graphics.
The CD ROM sets out not only to describe the site and give a perspective on the artists’ work, but further to look at the project in terms of national public art and the role of local authorities and other interested parties in such developments. The study brings together comments and reports from artists, consultants and local authority officers in a stylish research resource which offers a gateway to others exploring and considering public art initiatives. It appears to be an honest attempt to share information and experience (both good and bad) in a spirit of generosity not uncommon to users of the internet, but one imagines, rare in public life.
Congratulations must firstly go to the team for the ease with which this CD-ROM can be installed. It is both user friendly and runs cross platform. The user interface is a beautifully designed plan of the park, which aside from being an obvious starting point, is both effective and immediate in conveying the essence of the project .It does what all good interfaces do- it grabs the attention of the user in a simple but effective way. Such simplicity of design is often difficult to achieve.
The interface offers both ‘hot spots’ on the map of the park which produce pop-up screens of the art at each selected location and an alternative ‘Guided Tour’ in which each location is numbered according to the preferred route . The tour dictates the sequence in which the art is viewed (which is not always sequential in terms of location) it offers information about each site and a menu allows the user to access information about individual artists. Users of the ‘hot spot’ navigation screen option may access an alphabetic menu of artists direct at the bottom of the screen.
At the bottom right of the Overview screen , a menu button is offered. Moving the mouse towards the menu bar causes the whole screen to move and in this way I discovered that the park overview was navigable both left and right! This was only the first surprise. Clicking on the menu bar causes a sliding menu to shoot across the screen from right to left at alarming speed. Whilst the areas offered for exploration were both well categorised and clearly listed , promising a number of interesting routes around the issues of public art and the art itself, the sliding menu was both ugly in design and its action un-natural- this irritated me throughout.Whereas convention leads the user to expect a ‘pull down ’menu, the menu running from side to side would not have been an issue had it moved naturally from left to right across the screen. In fact, all navigational aids were placed to the right of the screen which is unusual. It might have been preferable to use the information sign on the overview of the park as an obvious hot spot and metaphor for linking and navigation.
At times, the clumsy design of the menu screens led to a rather cluttered look which spoiled the otherwise beautifully designed information screens. Use of additional windows or split screens could in part have solved this problem. The quality of the graphic design, page layout and photography was superb throughout, adding greatly to the value of the user experience.
Inevitably with a project of this nature involving endless committees and meetings, text was bound to be an issue, both because of the volume of supporting documentation and because of the difficulty of integrating such text with other media. Whilst the text is laid out using clear fonts and clear design, a huge amount of text is offered. Where it continues for many pages with extracts from reports and with interviews, it would have been better to have broken it up into smaller segments and in some instances replaced it with other media.. Sound could have been used to great effect either to narrate some of the text or to have replaced it with interviews along with stills or video of the interviewees. The text pages are offered as a sequence of pages which mimic the linearity of the print medium. Although the key players are underlined in the text there is no hypertext linking within the text and although a search facility in the options menu is provided, it is difficult to find and was extremely limited in it’s searching ability - in the main restricting the user to a simple search of subjects suggested in a short list alongside. A bookmark facility is also offered, but again not obviously. Lack of proper hypertext linking was a great disappointment and in terms of the user meant that navigation took much longer.
In general, sound has been used to little effect in this title, which is a pity as it is the cheapest of all media to include. Aside from a few ‘reactive’ noises confirming the selection of a site, it is used only in the appendix. Here a poem about the park is offered with optional audio . Not only is the poem thrown away in being hidden in the appendix, but an opportunity is lost to link the twenty six verses of the poem with the art sites which (presumably) were the inspiration. Additionally, a collection of vox -pop at each site would have provided an interesting record of public response. Video is also used in a minimal and inappropriate way. Video is a valuable tool, as Fred Riley points out ‘human vision is highly attuned to movement and moving images can hold vastly more information that still images’.[1] The most obvious use of video would have been to show an artist demonstrating a particularly difficult process which would otherwise have been too complicated to explain without long narrative of sound or text. Studies show that whilst ‘text alone promotes understanding of only quite shallow and cosmetic aspects of the targeted knowledge’[2], video allows the opposite. Five of the artists provided case studies-it would have been interesting to follow the process and contribution of them all with video. Instead we are offered a few 360 degree shots of art in situ which does not provide additional meaning or add value and although the park houses a video instillation we are not offered any experience of it!
A comparison of this site with public art in Birmingham is made and the national issues and implications are discussed which is interesting but further comparisons could have been made to include links with sculpture parks and other art initiatives around the country. However, the inclusion of existing public art in Bristol over the centuries is fascinating, with good research and background information. One wonders what the corporate and local authority responses were at the time! Information about the local authority strategy and initiatives over this century are given and this too is very interesting and well researched .
Further, excellent educational elements are found at the ‘History of Castle Park’ site, where stills and text have been carefully combined to great effect. Although the production team are very specific in targeting a user group of planners , artists and consultants, the CD ROM is so nearly an interactive guide to the park that there is enormous potential for developing the title further for use by schools. An educational derivative of this CD ROM could be used to great effect to introduce children of all ages both to art within their own communities and elsewhere - particularly if the artists section about the process of creation and their reactions to the placement of their work was expanded to include all the contributors instead of the current selection of only five artists representing different disciplines.
A ‘frequently asked question’ section would have been of interest as would a notebook facility to allow the user either to annotate the text or to make notes whilst reading it- particularly as there is so much information to access. Admittedly, the bookmark facility goes part of the way to addressing this need. A help facility is offered, but hidden in the options menu as is the search facility. Both of these needed to be placed closer to the interface and be permanently displayed, as does the quit button.
The main purpose of CD ROM is to offer the facilities for auditive, visual and textual communication simultaneously. As we have discussed above, this title is let down in its design by the lack of audio, it is also let down by the lack of hypertext linking in a meaningful way which in turn is to the detriment of the entire structure and ease of navigation of the title Additionally one other key element seems to be lacking and that is the lack of financial information within the content. Perhaps this information was considered too sensitive for public discussion, but lack of financial detail obviously has serious ramifications for the users.
Although the narrative of this title is at times confused, it is still possible once the limits of the navigation tools used are accepted, to filter an enormous quantity of information interestingly and elegantly. As a presentation medium the assembly and integration of mixed media offers the user sufficient control to present the information contained within in a variety of different situations and to a variety of interested parties - this really is an achievement.
In its current form, this title suffers from being fixed in time and content, it is a prime candidate for a hybrid title- one that crosses the division between CD ROM and Web site, one which by including a web-site link could not only encourage feedback, but could allow the public art debate to continue. A Web site would allow links to other relevant projects to be made and issues could be viewed from a national and international perspective.
Above all else this CD ROM is an elaborate management information resource, unique in that the content is designed to help the decision process of not one specific group or company, rather all interested parties The contributors are to be congratulated for their groundbreaking work in terms of the originality of the concept of this CD-ROM title. As management systems change and people adapt to obtaining much greater depth of information through integrated media, I believe that CD ROMs such as this one will be commonplace.
References
[1] Riley F Understanding IT: Developing Multimedia Courseware University of Hull
[2] Kommers P Hypermedia and Multimedia for Learning in Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1077 Multimedia, Hypermedia and Virtual Reality Eds. BrusilovskP.,Kommers P., Streitz N. First International Conference,MHVR’94 Moscow 1994