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Book Description

Brenda Laurel's Computers as Theatre revolutionized the field of human-computer interaction, offering ideas that inspired generations of interface and interaction designers-and continue to inspire them. Laurel's insight was that effective interface design, like effective drama, must engage the user directly in an experience involving both thought and emotion. Her practical conclusion was that a user's enjoyment must be a paramount design consideration, and this demands a deep awareness of dramatic theory and technique, both ancient and modern.

Now, two decades later, Laurel has revised and revamped her influential work, reflecting back on enormous change and personal experience and forward toward emerging technologies and ideas that will transform human-computer interaction yet again. Beginning with a clear analysis of classical drama theory, Laurel explores new territory through the lens of dramatic structure and purpose. Computers as Theatre, Second Edition, is directed to a far wider audience, is written more simply and elegantly, is packed with new examples, and is replete with exciting and important new ideas. 

  • This book

  • Draws lessons from massively multiplayer online games and systems, social networks, and mobile devices with embedded sensors

  • Integrates values-driven design as a key principle

  • Integrates key ideas about virtual reality

  • Covers new frontiers, including augmented reality, distributed and participatory sensing, interactive public installations and venues, and design for emergence

  • Once more, Brenda Laurel will help you see the connection between humans and computers as you never have before-and help you build interfaces and interactions that are pleasurably, joyously right!

    Table of Contents

    1. About This eBook
    2. Title Page
    3. Copyright Page
    4. Dedication Page
    5. Contents
    6. Foreword
      1. The Computer’s a Stage
      2. Simple Rules, Emergent Outcomes
    7. Preface
    8. Acknowledgments
    9. About the Author
    10. 1. The Nature of the Beast
      1. The Interface
      2. Throw the Baggage Out
      3. Theatre: More than an Interface Metaphor
    11. 2. Dramatic Foundations: Part 1: Elements of Qualitative Structure
      1. Hoary Poetics
      2. The Four Causes, or Why Things Are the Way They Are
      3. The Six Elements and Causal Relations among Them
    12. 3. Dramatic Foundations: Part II: Orchestrating Action
      1. Whole Actions
      2. Dramatic Potential: The “Flying Wedge”
      3. Dramatic Anatomy
    13. 4. Dramatic Interactors: Collaboration, Constraints, and Engagement
      1. Human-Computer Interaction as Mediated Collaboration
      2. Constraints
      3. Engagement: The First-Person Imperative
    14. 5. Design Heuristics
      1. Computer as Medium
      2. Interface Metaphors: Powers and Limitations
      3. The Primacy of Action
      4. Designing Character and Thought
      5. Understanding Audiences
    15. 6. New Terrain in Interaction Design
      1. Methods and Media
      2. Extending the Geometry of Dramatic Interaction
      3. Design for Emergence
      4. Design for the Good
    16. References
    17. Index