This project is an exploration of methods for generating virtual urban environments, framed in an interactive first-person perspective allowing the user to navigate the architectural design space by walking through a city as it is being generated. The project is developed on a foundation of three primary concepts: 1) A spatial interpretation of parameter sets which are positioned in virtual space, 2) Distance-based interpolation of these parameter sets as a method to govern how the urban environments are generated at different points in space,3) The transformation and merging of basic square grids embedded in positioned parameter sets resulting in a composite grid which functions as the spatial framework of the urban environment. The interaction of these concepts forms a framework which allows for the directing of space using 'parametric styles'. This term is in analogy to 'style' in an art-historical sense, which poses questions centered on the formalization and meaning of aesthetics in the context of urban culture, as well as offering an experiment lab for simulating power dynamics between actors in the theory and practice of urban planning and development.

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Yes / Purpose – This study aims to examine the impact of mobile interactivity dimensions (active control, personalization, ubiquitous connectivity, connectedness, responsiveness, and synchronicity) on customer engagement. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative field survey study was conducted to collect the required data from actual users of mobile shopping in three countries: Jordan, the United Kingdom (UK) and Saudi Arabia. Findings – The results are based on structural equation modelling and support the impact of five dimensions of mobile interactivity: active control, personalization, ubiquitous connectivity, responsiveness, and synchronicity. Research limitations/implications – This study only considered the shopping activities conducted by mobile channels, while other channels (e.g. online channels, traditional channels, and social media shopping channels) are not considered. Furthermore, the current model does not consider the impact of personal factors (e.g. technology readiness, self-efficacy, user experience). The results of the current study present a foundation that can guide marketers and practitioners in the area of mobile shopping. Originality/value – This study enriches the current understanding of the impact of mobile interactivity on mobile shopping, as well as how mobile interactivity can enhance the level of customer engagement.

Immersive and interactive storytelling in virtual reality (VR) is an emerging creative practice that has been thriving in recent years. Educational applications using immersive VR storytelling to explain complex science concepts have very promising pedagogical benefits because on the one hand, storytelling breaks down the complexity of science concepts by bridging them to people's everyday experiences and familiar cognitive models, and on the other hand, the learning process is further reinforced through rich interactivity afforded by the VR experiences. However, it is unclear how different amounts of storytelling and interactivity in an interactive VR storytelling experience may affect learning outcomes due to a paucity of literature on educational VR storytelling research. This dissertation aims to add to the literature through an exploration of interactivity and essential storytelling elements in educational VR storytelling experiences and their impact on learning. We designed a working prototype of interactive and immersive VR storytelling experience, Immunology VR, that focuses on the learning of specific immunology concepts: neutrophil transmigration and killing mechanisms. Based on the initial prototype, we further developed six variations that allowed us to conduct two major experiments below. Our first experiment explored designs of three different levels of interactivity, low, medium, and high, in the VR storytelling experiences and their effects on immunology learning. We found subjective evidence to support our research hypothesis that increased level of interactivity will lead to increased engagement in VR learning. Our finding suggests that interactivity is a key design element in VR learning design for effective learning and should be considered in all VR learning applications. Our second experiment focused on the designs of the level of storytelling richness and their effects on learning. Specifically, we designed three storytelling conditions, minimal storytelling, basic storytelling, and advanced storytelling, and investigated how each of them affected immunology learning. Subjective evidence from our user interview data suggested that participants from higher levels of storytelling conditions were more likely to perceive storytelling elements as the most useful features in the VR experience that helped with their learning. It is also suggested that higher levels of richness in essential storytelling elements may trigger certain emotions and empathy in more users and positively affect their learning. / Doctor of Philosophy / Immersive and interactive storytelling in virtual reality (VR) is an emerging creative practice that has been thriving in recent years. Educational applications using immersive VR storytelling to explain complex science concepts have very promising pedagogical benefits because on the one hand, storytelling breaks down the complexity of science concepts by bridging them to people's everyday experiences and familiar cognitive models, and on the other hand, the learning process is further reinforced through rich interactivity provided by the VR experiences. However, it is unclear how different amounts of storytelling and interactivity setup in an interactive VR storytelling experience may affect learning outcomes due to a paucity of literature on educational VR storytelling research. In this dissertation, we explored interactivity and essential storytelling elements in educational VR storytelling experiences and their impact on learning.

Scholars have examined a variety of dimensions and models of interactivity in an attempt to articulate a comprehensive definition. Outcome Interactivity Theory (OIT) considers interactivity to be the result of a communication event involving the successful integration of three predictive dimensions: the presence of actual interactive technological features, the presence of similarly reactive content elements, and relevant user experiences that empower the user to employ these interactive elements within the communication event toward a desirable outcome. This dissertation accomplishes three major objectives: clarify the literature relating to the interactivity construct; introduce Outcome Interactivity Theory as a new theory-based conceptualization of the interactivity construct; and test Outcome Interactivity Theory using a pre-test post-test control group full experimental design. The study tests the impact of interactivity on knowledge acquisition and satisfaction student learning outcomes. In addition, the OIT model itself is tested to measure the effect of interactivity on knowledge acquisition and satisfaction. Finally, this study presents a new set of highly reliable interactivity measurement scales to quantify the influence of specific individual dimensions and elements on interactivity as defined by the OIT model. Results are described, and limitations and practical implications are discussed.

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Today in 2015 the game industry grows and games become more advanced. This leads to that the ways interactive media such as games portray their narrative are also improving. Therefore we chose to examine what factors affected how five experienced gamers viewed the narrative in the game Dear Esther (The Chinese Room, 2012) the first time they played it. The investigation used stimulated recall in order to collect data and the data were analysed with the help of the EPP methodology. Our study showed there was a diversity in how the game’s narrative was perceived and that a number of factors affected the interpretations of the narrative. These factors were organised in four categories: exploration, feeling and atmosphere, player experience, and identification with the player character and theories around the narrative. A fifth category evaluation of the storytelling, described the player’s thoughts about the way the narrative was told. Our main conclusion was that the factors affecting the way players perceived the narrative of the game varied much depending on who played the game and what their regular experience of games were. For example some were more affected by environment and monologue while others was more affected by earlier experiences of how games used to work. The respondent’s perception of the game narrative were also affected by their own thoughts and theories around the narrative and what might have happened. We could also see there were several different thoughts and opinions on how the narrative style of the game worked and three participants thought it worked well. / Idag 2015 publiceras fler och mer avancerade spel än någonsin tidigare. Hand i hand med denna utveckling borde också utvecklingen av de narrativ som spel kan berätta gå. Därför undersöker vi i denna uppsats vilka faktorer som påverkade uppfattningen av narrativet i Dear Esther hos fem spelvana personer som tidigare inte spelat spelet. Undersökningen gjordes med hjälp av stimulated recall och data analyserades med hjälp av EPP-metoden. Vår studie visade på en stor spridning av upplevelserna och en mängd faktorer som påverkade upplevelsen av narrativet. Dessa faktorer delade vi in i olika kategorier. Dessa var Utforskning, Känslor och stämning, Spelarvana samt Identifikation med berättarkaraktären och teorier kring narrativ. En femte kategori kallad Värdering av berättartekniken beskrev hur spelarna uppfattat spelets berättarteknik. Den främsta slutsatsen vi kan dra är att de faktorer som påverkade hur respondenterna uppfattade Dear Esther och dess narrativ varierade mycket beroende på vem som spelade. Vissa av respondenterna påverkades mer av omgivningar och monologer, medan andra påverkades mer av sin egen vana och insikt i hur spel bör fungera. Alla påverkads dock mycket av sina egna tankar känslor och teorier kring vad som en gång hänt. Vi kunde också se att det fanns olika tankar och åsikter angående hur berättartekniken i spelet ansågs fungera och tre av respondenterna ansåg att det fungerade bra.

The Internet is growing in popularity as a health information sourceespecially among young adults. Interactivity has been pinpointed as the keyfeature that makes the Internet a potentially powerful health communicationtool. It is being heralded as a hybrid channel that has the capacity not only todisseminate health information to mass audiences both asynchronously andsynchronously, but also has the capacity to provide an engaging and stimulatingenvironment that can promote exploratory learning and active processing ofinformation. Despite these exciting claims, there is still a dearth of theoreticallydrivenempirical studies providing support for or against these assumptions. Westill know very little about how interactive technologies actually influenceinformation use, learning and motivational processes.A popular view is that the communicative efficacy of interactivetechnologies is influenced more with their match with comprehension processesand individual differences than with the level of interactivity itself. This studywas designed to tease out the potential effects of different levels of interactivityon comprehension and to determine whether individual differences in need forcognition would moderate such effects. About 441 young adults (ages 18-26)from the University of Kentucky participated in a 2 by 2 factorial experimentdesigned to test the effects of two levels of interactivity and two levels of needfor cognition on the comprehension of a health website on skin cancer.Results showed a significant main effect for level of interactivity oncomprehension scores holding the covariates, time on task and reading style,constant. Those exposed to the high interactivity site had significantly highercomprehension scores than those exposed to the low interactivity site. Therewas, however, no significant main effect for need for cognition, neither was therea significant interaction effect between level of interactivity and need forcognition on comprehension scores. Implications of these results and suggestionsfor future research are also discussed.

The MA Thesis makes a brief survey about one of interesting trends in museology - the interactivity. First part of the Thesis is devoted to the definition of interactivity in the relation with museums. Interactivity is understanded as a possibility for the visitors to be active and creative at the museum, to use more senses than only their eyes, the possibility to touch the exhibited objects. From all types of museums two are considered to be completely interactive or hands-on - Science Centers and Children's museums. The next part of the thesis is dedicated to the fundamental aspects of Arts Marketing and interactivity is assigned to the Product of museums as one of its aspects. An analyzis of some foreign and Czech interactive museums is also an important part of the Thesis.

Dentro do contexto das tecnologias digitais, desenvolve-se um novo tipo de narrativa, com características híbridas e interativas, apontando para um campo a ser explorado, o que abre espaço para análises mais específicas deste gênero no meio digital. O uso de diferentes linguagens, graus de interatividade e de imersão favorecem modos de leitura que vão configurando diferentes formas. Esta tese pretende investigar como as especificidades das mídias digitais possibilitam a construção de sentido narrativo a partir da interação e sinalizam caminhos críticos que sejam próprios para este universo. A tese usa como bases principais teóricas as discussões de Ryan (2001; 2002; 2004; 2006; 2011) sobre os graus de narratividade e as características de imersão e interatividade das narrativas em meio digital. As discussões de Murray (1999; 2013), Laurel (1991), Hayles (2009) e Ryan (2001; 2006) sinalizam as preocupações que se deve ter com as narrativas neste meio e sua preservação de coerência. As caracterizações da materialidade da escrita, as caracterizações de um processo de semiose que constitui sentido no ato de leitura, tomam por base as considerações de Hayles (2002) e de Santaella (2001), levando também em conta o que se discute já desde a poesia concreta, através de Pignatari (1977; 1987). Por meio da pesquisa e leitura das obras em hipermídia, a partir das características de criação, que permitem diferentes modos de interação, buscamos averiguar como este processo interativo revela diferentes tipos de narrativas / In the context of digital technologies, a new type of narrative is developed, with hybrid and interactive characteristics, pointing to a new field to be explored, what gives room for more specific analysis of this genre in the digital media. The use of different languages, degrees of interactivity and immersion promote ways of reading that shape different forms. This thesis intends to investigate how the specificities of digital media allow the construction of narrative meaning through interaction and how they indicate critical paths that are appropriate for this universe. The thesis uses as its main theoretical basis the discussions of Ryan (2001; 2002; 2004; 2006) about the degrees of narrativity and the characteristics of immersion and interactivity of narratives in digital media. The discussions of Murray (1999), Laurel (1991), Hayles (2009) and Ryan (2001; 2006) point to the concerns that one must have with narratives in this medium and its preservation of coherence. The characterization of the materiality of writing, the characterization of a process of semiosis that composes meaning in the act of reading, take as a reference the considerations of Hayles (20002) and Santaella (2001), also taking into account what has been discussed since the concret poetry, through Pignatari (1977; 1987). Through the research and the reading of the hypermedia texts, considering the strategies of their creation, which allow different ways of interaction, we tried to verify how this interactive process reveals different types of narratives.