The experience of fictional inconsistencies in games is surprisingly common. The goal was to determine if solutions exist for this problem and if there are inherent limitations to games as a medium that make storytelling uncommonly difficult. Termed ‘ludic dysnarrativa’, this phenomenon can cause a loss of immersion in the fictional world of a game and lead to greater difficulty in intuitively understanding a game’s rules. Through close textual analysis of The Stanley Parable and other games, common trends are identified that lead a player to experience dysnarrativa. Contemporary cognitive theory is examined alongside how other media deal with fictional inconsistency to develop a model of how information (fictional and otherwise) is structured in media generally. After determining that gaps in information are largely the cause of a player feeling dysnarrativa, it is proposed that a game must encourage imaginative acts from the player to prevent these gaps being perceived. Thus a property of games, termed ‘imaginability’, was determined desirable for fictionally consistent game worlds. Many specific case studies are cited to refine a list of principles that serve as guidelines for achieving imaginability. To further refine these models and principles, multiplayer games such as Dungeons and Dragons were analysed specifically for how multiple players navigate fictional inconsistencies within them. While they operate very differently to most single-player games in terms of their fiction, multiplayer games still provide useful clarifications and principles for reducing fictional inconsistencies in all games. Negotiation between agents (designers, players, game rules) in a game is of huge value to maintaining coherent fictional worlds and social information in some multiplayer games takes on a role close to that of fictional information in single player games. Dysnarrativa can also be used to positive effect in certain cases such as comedy games, horror games or for satirical purposes.

The central purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether users have distinct preferences for specific navigational patterns in multimedia: that is preferences for moving through multimedia. Subsidiary questions are whether users have preferences for working strategies, (the mental approach to investigating software) whether these preferences are similar for specific groups and whether these preferences are affected by the software's system and navigational design. Four groups were investigated within two ranges: children to adults, and novices to experts. The literature review revealed four different perspectives of investigating navigation: user, designer, pedagogy and human computer interaction and although this research concentrates on the first two perspectives the other two are integral and of equal importance. Two empirical studies elicited the navigational information. The first studied pairs of children undertaking set tasks in multimedia, and demonstrated that although each pair had definite preferences, each group did not utilise the full pattern range discerned from the observations, literature review and multimedia package analysis. The second study was redesigned using individual adults to ascertain the full range of preferred patterns in use. The essential element from the investigations was the wide range of variation between individuals and within groups. There was a gradual progression in their range and speed using these patterns, related to their skills, abilities and experience, and each individual could be placed along a continuum. Topologies of the multimedia packages and diagrams of the fit of the navigation patterns were included. Finally an expert panel was convened to verify the pattern range and their comments supported the new classification. The research outcomes included navigational patterns and working strategies classifications, future techniques for designers, and user methods. These will create more successful and informed multimedia, and forward developments and improvements in the design of high quality user preference software.

The United States is in an emerging period of transition, shifting to online multimedia campaigns. This research attempts to explore general knowledge of multimedia expansion, and through qualitative research methods provide a successful model for the development of an effective promotion tool. Findings from the heuristic study showed users preferences for varying forms of media, thus demonstrating the need to provide content in many different forms. The findings from this study aide in the development of multimedia, and illustrate the need for further studies in the use of multimedia as a promotion tool. / Department of Telecommunications

Although there is a large body of literature exploring the topic of knowledge management, most of the focus is on its application to industry. Seldom has a research priority been placed on the use of knowledge management in a university setting. This research investigated the impact of applying a knowledge management system -- Knowledge Net -- to the students in a course about designing learning activities with interactive multimedia at the University of Waterloo. A design experiment method was employed. Eight students were engaged in the study. The purpose of the design experiment was to investigate the students' response towards Knowledge Net, their ability to absorb and apply the knowledge gained from Knowledge Net, and the incentives that encouraged them to share and retrieve knowledge from the system. The findings will be helpful for the people who want to practice knowledge management in a university setting. The study results revealed that initially students had a positive attitude towards the potential value of the information in Knowledge Net. However, at the end of their design experiment, they reported a low expectation that students could learn from and apply the information in Knowledge Net. The reasons varied. It may be that they failed to truly understand the knowledge or to trust the source of information. Many students habitually prefer face-to-face contact with their counterparts to computers. As a result, the study suggested a few ways to improve the absorption of knowledge and to enhance the behavior of knowledge sharing. These new directions include: arranging personal meetings between the providers and recipients of knowledge, playing videos of other students sharing knowledge on Knowledge Net, increasing the level of encouragement and guidance from the instructor on use of the system, and applying situated learning and case studies. In addition, grading students on their use of Knowledge Net may be a useful incentive to help students make more effective use of Knowledge Net.

Although there is a large body of literature exploring the topic of knowledge management, most of the focus is on its application to industry. Seldom has a research priority been placed on the use of knowledge management in a university setting. This research investigated the impact of applying a knowledge management system -- Knowledge Net -- to the students in a course about designing learning activities with interactive multimedia at the University of Waterloo. A design experiment method was employed. Eight students were engaged in the study. The purpose of the design experiment was to investigate the students' response towards Knowledge Net, their ability to absorb and apply the knowledge gained from Knowledge Net, and the incentives that encouraged them to share and retrieve knowledge from the system. The findings will be helpful for the people who want to practice knowledge management in a university setting. The study results revealed that initially students had a positive attitude towards the potential value of the information in Knowledge Net. However, at the end of their design experiment, they reported a low expectation that students could learn from and apply the information in Knowledge Net. The reasons varied. It may be that they failed to truly understand the knowledge or to trust the source of information. Many students habitually prefer face-to-face contact with their counterparts to computers. As a result, the study suggested a few ways to improve the absorption of knowledge and to enhance the behavior of knowledge sharing. These new directions include: arranging personal meetings between the providers and recipients of knowledge, playing videos of other students sharing knowledge on Knowledge Net, increasing the level of encouragement and guidance from the instructor on use of the system, and applying situated learning and case studies. In addition, grading students on their use of Knowledge Net may be a useful incentive to help students make more effective use of Knowledge Net.

Medical schools in the United States have begun the process of changing the teaching methodologies used in the classroom. The traditional, teacher-centered environment is shifting toward a more student-centered, active learning environment. Part of this shift is the integration of online learning to deliver a continuously expanding medical curriculum by moving content learning outside the classroom and creating active learning activities for the classroom. As more medical schools adopt online learning as a supplemental teaching tool, medical education faculty are taking on the role of instructional designers without having any theoretical knowledge on adult learning theory or online learning practices. Schools are developing online learning materials without relying on an instructional design framework to guide the analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of the online curriculum. This can result in developing online materials that do not meet the intended objectives, are designed poorly, or do not incorporate learning principles specific to the way humans use computers to learn. At the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, the third year radiology clerkship is a requirement of the curriculum; however, the rotation only lasts two weeks, versus the four to seven weeks provided the other six rotations. Student group sessions led by the radiology clerkship director are limited to four hours in the afternoon, Monday through Friday. This limited time has driven the need to explore alternative solutions for the delivery of the learning material to students. This study seeks to apply an instructional design process, ADDIE, to the development of four e-learning modules for a third year, required, radiology clerkship course using the ADDIE process as a framework and incorporating a rapid prototyping approach. The purpose is to identify how to effectively implement an instructional design methodology, ADDIE, using rapid prototyping when developing supplemental online learning materials for a radiology clerkship course.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 97 pages. / Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Computer-based multimedia offer an alternative means of providing instruction to learners in two primary, yet disparate, ways. Multimedia can be used to convey information to learners, or alternatively, learners can make use of multimedia to impart information. One example of the use of multimedia technologies at the University of South Florida is an interactive computer kiosk installed in the Anthropology Exhibit Gallery. The development of the educational program featured on the kiosk's touchscreen computer is the subject of this paper. The purpose of the kiosk's program was twofold: 1) to introduce the field of anthropology to university students and the general public who visit the Anthropology Exhibit Gallery; and 2) to incorporate training in the creation of multimedia materials into two departmental project-based courses, Museum Methods and Visual Anthropology. / ABSTRACT: Designing effective educational programs that take advantage of multimedia capabilities without losing focus on the user's needs or on the content being presented is a challenging endeavor. In this paper, I present the process of designing an interactive multimedia program, and discuss the critical issues of audience, hardware and software, programming tools and other technical and design considerations. The development of the program, furthermore, must be understood within the broader context of several areas, including anthropology and museums, the role of education in museums, and exhibitions as a form of media and communication. Finally, a summary of the project is presented, including a discussion of the problems and successes encountered and suggested areas for further development. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

"Interactive fiction" has been used to describe many of today's multimedia products. In reality, there is not a universal understanding of what interactive fiction is or what it should entail. The meaning of "interactive" is often interpreted in different ways. Many stories are considered to be interactive because they are placed on the computer. Meanwhile, such stories may lack most of the essential qualities for good literature. Interaction fiction should be upheld to the same standards as traditional texts. Following this belief, this research covers the underlying theories of interactive fiction, examples of misleading "interactive fiction" studies, and guidelines for design pulled from the fields of writing, children's literature and instructional technology. I have used these guidelines to develop a prototype of interactive fiction, which was be tested and revised in several cycles. First, I revised the prototype based upon reviews by several groups of experts from the areas of instructional technology and childhood education. The prototype was then pilot-tested by two participants from the target market. Based upon the pilot-test results, I revised the prototype. Finally, several participants read the prototype. In this final stage, I observed the participants and conducted interviews with open-ended questions. Using the prototype that was developed according to proposed standards, I was able to gain insight into the target market's perception of interaction fiction. All details of the design and development of the prototype are included in effort to provide guidelines for building future interactive fiction. Additionally, several themes emerged when participants from the target market were observed and interviewed. Among the most prominent were the themes of storybook characters and identifying with those characters. Children in this study were able to identity themselves as the protagonist, making the main character's decisions throughout the story. Further, participants added their own elaborations of the story. In the end, the evidence of this research showed that participants were able to go beyond reading the story. The submersion into to story can be rooted in several existing literacy theories, which are discussed. Lastly, this research provides suggestions for future research, development and implementation of interactive fiction.

Computer-based multimedia offer an alternative means of providing instruction to learners in two primary, yet disparate, ways. Multimedia can be used to convey information to learners, or alternatively, learners can make use of multimedia to impart information. One example of the use of multimedia technologies at the University of South Florida is an interactive computer kiosk installed in the Anthropology Exhibit Gallery. The development of the educational program featured on the kiosk's touchscreen computer is the subject of this paper. The purpose of the kiosk's program was twofold: 1) to introduce the field of anthropology to university students and the general public who visit the Anthropology Exhibit Gallery; and 2) to incorporate training in the creation of multimedia materials into two departmental project-based courses, Museum Methods and Visual Anthropology. Designing effective educational programs that take advantage of multimedia capabilities without losing focus on the user's needs or on the content being presented is a challenging endeavor. In this paper, I present the process of designing an interactive multimedia program, and discuss the critical issues of audience, hardware and software, programming tools and other technical and design considerations. The development of the program, furthermore, must be understood within the broader context of several areas, including anthropology and museums, the role of education in museums, and exhibitions as a form of media and communication. Finally, a summary of the project is presented, including a discussion of the problems and successes encountered and suggested areas for further development.

A common concern for people using computer databases is becoming "lost" within the complex hierarchy of entries. Most direct manipulation interface design guidelines suggest designers should include a feature for “undoing” user inputs (Smith and Mosier, 1986). In the case of a database, undo translates to backtracking support. The first purpose of this research was to confirm that computer-supported backtracking tools reduce navigation time over manual backtracking. The second purpose was to compare navigation times among a subset of backtracking tools. The third purpose was to determine if users prefer to use one or more backtracking tools significantly more than others. Four backtracking tools were developed by crossing two factors: History (history list vs no history list) and Level (component vs entry). History list indicates the user may view a chronological listing of nodes that have been viewed and directly select a destination node. No history list means the user must backtrack through each visited node with no shortcuts. Component indicates the backtracking tools operate only at the lowest level, or smallest definable node, of the tree-like database structure. Entry means that backtracking occurs at the higher parent node. Thus, multiple components make up an entry . In addition to the four computer backtracking tools, overall navigating and manual backtracking was done using a hierarchical Table of Contents. The tools were evaluated in an experimental, hierarchical, direct-manipulation database. Trials were conducted in the form of a multiple-choice information retrieval task. The independent variables included the backtracking tool (four-computer supported, one-manual) and the backtrack Task Length. The dependent measures included navigation time, the frequency with which the computer tool was used over manual backtracking (Table of Contents), and questionnaire responses. The results of this study provided some of the first solid support for the many guidelines that have been written recommending user recovery, or undo support. Backtracking with any of the four computer-supported tools resulted in a significantly smaller navigation time than manual backtracking using the Table of Contents. Subjects using either of the entry tools had consistent backtracking times across trials regardless of backtrack task length. When provided with a history list, subjects in the entry condition had significantly smaller navigation times than subjects in the component condition. Users did not show any differences between computer tools in rated efficiency, ease of use, or objective preference measures. / Master of Science