“Implementation” is a great example of utilizing hypertext, immersion and interactivity in a very unanticipated way. The narratives are mailed to participants from different locations. Pieces of the narrative are then taken somewhere to be placed, whether it be a parking meter, wall, trash bin, etc. To the regular reader, this particular narrative might prove challenging because of the continuity of the narrative. Looking at the picture of where the narrative piece is located may cause some extra pondering for the reader as he/she wonders why the narrative was placed there. To me, I think this may be considered more of an artistic piece more than a story are there any objections? Once again this narrative falls under the peculiar text structure which were found in Patchwork Girl, Inanimate Alice, and House of Leaves. Once again the gears of our minds must move faster and harder in order to make at least an attempt to find the continuity found in “Implementation.”

I like the idea of implementation, the part I struggled with in looking at the description is that I was trying to decipher is this was performance art or literary work. It can be seen as both I suppose, so the real question in my head becomes, what would be more provoking, and which would do a better job at describing the narrative. The idea that the story takes place on a location and in many locations is fascinating, as it becomes a “living” story, not (as they describe) a choose your path narrative, but a narrative that is expanding and contracting with the input and participation of the creators, those that choose to get involved and those following the narrative.

Having noted the interference sound, my next though leads me to wonder about the sponsorship behind this series. I wonder what their feelings are about interference noise. And maybe this series doesn’t rely on sponsorship like KateModern does. I digress…

Either way, this interference is just one lovely example of how the authors move the needle of the narrative. Little additions (like this noise example) add to the story and help ratchet up the creepy factor.

Let’s start by saying that of the three chapters I could easily do without the first two (both of which are so similar, except for a few details), although they might be of relevance within the grand structure of the story, by allowing us to see the development of the character, Alice, a future video game designer, starting out as a child living a relatively simple life facing simple problems, whose talents evolve as the story progresses and whose problems also become more complex and dramatic. This is an interesting idea but we still have to see if the following chapters manage to fulfill the expectations created by this premise.

There are other appealing elements in the production, for example the concept of incorporating video games into the story, specifically the matrushka dolls game in the third episode, which offers something other to a story that so far is not yet very engaging by itself. In this case the game was relatively easy, however I did find myself in one of the Internet forums while trying to find out the location of one of the dolls for a specific sequence (in which you had to turn the brightness of the computer screen to a 100% in order to discover the doll).

Visually, the production is effective, but not exactly (or not entirely) attractive. I felt like the creators failed to incorporate elements of the countries where the episodes take place (except for the third episode where at least they tried to incorporate the dolls and a certain font, which, in my opinion, wasn’t enough), and use them to enhance the visual experience, to a point where it made me wonder if the locations mattered at all.

Finally, here’s a link to a website that has some interesting interactive poems:
http://www.bornmagazine.org

Which brings me to another point. I find it interesting that the only character in the series that’s somewhat defined illustratively is Billy, the imaginary friend Alice created on her Ba-xi. He’s only a pencil drawing, but we have a clue about his size, shape, etc. With Alice, we have no idea what color hair she has, whether she’s short or tall, has big feet or little feet, whether she’s black, white, Asian, etc. All we really know is her age and given her father’s apparent profession, who knows whether that’s accurate. The funny thing is, as much as I want to know what Alice and her parents look like, the language she uses and her actions give me more of a feeling of who she is than the drawings of Billy tell me.

“Inanimate Alice” reminds me a little of “Patchwork Girl” in the sense that you have to really work to move the story along, particularly in the third episode where the reader has to collect all the Russian nesting dolls to get to the end. Why this is necessary is beyond me? Perhaps the idea is to get you thinking like Alice would, but having to constantly search for a button to move to the next page just makes me want to grab a hardback book.

Alice is isolated in each of the three episodes; we participate in her solitude as she reflects on her current situation and survives traumatic events in her childhood. In each episode, she copes with her isolation through creative activities with her mother and her handheld computer. Her handheld computer is her security blanket, the one thing she controls and her source of comfort, the computer being the domain of her alter ego Brad the skateboarder.

The picture book narrative is hypertextual in the way beats of the story are symbolized and hyperlinked by icons that accumulate along the right border of the screen as the story progresses. The progression of the story is also cinematic, linear in its revealing and closely tied to a soundtrack. The soundtrack compliments the visual style of the story and adds a heightened sense of drama. For instance, as the family car stops at the last checkpoint in episode 3, the music stops and we hear the footsteps of an approaching guard.

The narrative is very effective and affective – creating a strong sense of mood and suspense – and only falls down when it attempts to incorporate arcade style gaming into the third episode. The reader (if they play the game version of the narrative, it was good to provide this choice) is obliged to find Russian dolls hidden in the pages. Clicking on them launches a facsimile hand held computer arcade game. The controls for the game were not consistently responsive and were entirely disruptive to the flow of the story. It would have been much more effective to incorporate only the task of locating the hidden doll images as the story progressed. Puzzles compliment the obscure and mysterious presentation of the story, the stark objectivity (and poor implementation) of the arcade approach does not integrate with the narrative and should be expunged.

Focus on one thing. Usability seems to be a missing aspect of many of the digital narratives that have been examined so far in this class. Inanimate Alice was another example where the conventions that have been put forth for the online medium don’t seem to be considered. Reading, Inanimate Alice on a black background with white text and then additionally, blurring text is not a good idea for our already strained eyes.

Readability is an important aspect online. The use of white text, smaller font than expect on a black background, along with no real controls to try to manage the text — to make it more readable, broke many of the “conventions”, I teach others when designing for the online medium. It has been shown in many studies how font size, type of text and backgrounds affect us in both positive and negative ways — links below as examples:

• http://www.stcsig.org/usability/topics/readability.html
• http://www.benefit-from-it.com/index.php?fa=wdu101presentingText.fontSize
• http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/41/onlinetext.htm
• http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol6/usability_no17.htm

These are just a few examples as there are many more resources on the topic. If you want more information about this I can give you other options. It seems that the world of digital narratives has not run into the commercial issues of usability and accessibility (508 government compliance) online. I spend a lot of my day trying to make sure that the site I participate in managing is easy to read so that users will come back, stay longer and tell friends.

As I was hunting around for information about Inanimate Alice, again I was struck by the number of blogs, websites and online forums that made it difficult to read their information. Several backgrounds were black with white and/or grey text. The biggest “offender” was this site http://www.jesslaccetti.co.uk/2006/02/inanimate-alice.html which I had to stop reading because it was such a strain for my eyes.

Reading online is an important aspect that should be considered when designing these types of digital narratives. If you want humans to read you should consider more of the cognitive factors that go into processing information online and less time considering the aesthetic appeal of color schemes. Or at least bring more balance between the art and the science of the medium.