Trajectories as Journeys through User Experiences

This week I chose to discuss “From Interaction to Trajectories: Designing Coherent Journeys Through User Experiences” by Steve Benford, Gabriella Giannachi, Boriana Koleva and Tim Rodden [1], a paper which was part of the CHI conference 2009. The focus of this work is less on the design of specific systems or devices, but rather on the crafting of rich immersive experiences which are facilitated by the use of interactive technology.

The authors adapt the notion of “trajectories” for describing particular sequences of such user experiences within an interlaced hybrid structure between the physical and a virtual world. While the designer of user experiences initially sets an ideal route, each participant defines their own specific journey. Benford et al. depict this natural experience gap as “a fundamental tension between an author’s ideal trajectory that is designed into an experience and a participant’s actual trajectory, with orchestration being required to resolve the two, enabling participants to temporarily diverge from and reconverge with the pre-established path” [1:715].

Careful orchestration is hence key to create coherent user journeys through an interactive experience. This is a stimulating as well as complex challenge for experience-centred designers which the authors try to make more manageable by outlining the components of the underlying hybrid structures and the types of key transitions experienced within these structures.

Hybrid structures are constituted by the following elements:

• Hybrid space is created by linking and overlaying multiple physical and virtual spaces as a stage for the experience.
• Hybrid time is important on several levels in terms of story, plot, schedule, interaction and general perception.
• Creators, participants and the public engage in different and changing hybrid roles.
• Interfaces are assembled as part of hybrid ecologies enabling (or constraining) interaction and collaboration.

The key moments of transitions within these structures then include:

• Beginning and endings which frame the experiences
• Role and interface transitions in course of the enacted narrative
• Traversals between physical and virtual worlds
• Temporal transitions in case of episodic experiences
• Transitions into physical resources (gaining access to key objects) and across seams (due to constraints in infrastructure)

In their paper Benford et al. discuss four different user experience projects and associated studies through the lens of trajectories. All of the examples are situated in the context of playful entertainment including an art installation, an augmented city tour, an amusement park ride and an adventure game. Nontheless, I think that the concept of trajectories can be useful for a wider range of application, especially when the designed interaction involves narratives in a wider sense. Also, I think this paper provides an interesting account on the question of control by design. A lot of the literature we have read so far dealt with autonomous re-appropriation by users and how we as designers have to accept that we don’t really have control over how our designs are eventually used. In this paper, a certain divergence by the participant/user is even essential part of the concept. However, certain key moments within the experience are mandatory and designers need to take the choice from the participant. This constitutes an interesting tension between user freedom and designer guidance leading to the big question how we can ensure coherent user experiences while dealing with all eventualities.

References

1. Steve Benford and Gabriella Giannachi. 2009. From interaction to trajectories: designing coherent journeys through user experiences. Chi 2009: 709–718. http://doi.org/10.1145/1518701.1518812