Tim Robert Merritt

Designing physical and social intergenerational family entertainment

Present computer games and digital entertainment do not usually facilitate intergenerational family interactions. According to recent survey results in Japan, there is a high percentage of older people who own and play electronic or computer games, but rarely do they play the games with their family members. It is a positive sign that more older people are participating in the digital games arena, but it would be even more beneficial if they could interact actively with the young family members through gaming activities. This could possibly strengthen family bonding and bridge the gap between older people and youth culture. This paper presents steps for designing an intergenerational family entertainment system which focuses on physical and social interactions using a mixed reality floor system. The main design goals include: facilitating interactions between users with varied levels of skill in utilizing technology, utilizing the familiar physical motions from other activities to make an intuitive physical interface, and encouraging social interactions among families and friends. Detailed implementation of these steps is presented in the design of our intergenerational entertainment system, Age Invaders. Four main prototype iterations for the system is presented. Our design process is based on User Centered Design and relies on constant involvement of users to understand the key issues and to help make effective design decisions. The results of the study help to focus the refinements of the existing platform from a usability standpoint and also aids in the development of new physical entertainment and interactive applications. This study provides insights into user issues including how users interact in a complex mixed reality experience, which is heavily based in physicality. The use of one portion of the user base which is most proficient with technology before involving the novice users was found to empower novice users to begin to use digital technology.

Empathetic living media

We describe a new form of interactive living media used to communicate social or ecological information in the form of an empathetic ambient media. In the fast paced modern world people are generally too busy to monitor various significant social or human aspects of their lives, such as time spent with their family, their overall health, state of the ecology, etc. By quantifying such information digitally, information is semantically coupled into living microorganisms, E. coli. Through the use of transformed DNA, the E. coli will then glow or dim according to the data. The core technical innovation of this system is the development of an information system based on a closed-loop control system through which digital input is able to control input fluids to the E. coli, and thereby control the output glow of the E. coli in real time. Thus, social or ecological based information is coupled into a living and organic media through this control system capsule and provides a living media which promotes empathy. We provide user design and feedback results to verify the validity of our hypothesis, and provide not only system results but generalized design frameworks for empathetic living media in general.

Age invaders: user studies of intergenerational computer entertainment

The design goal of the Age Invaders system is to make a mixed reality interaction platform that can facilitate meaningful social interaction with players, from many backgrounds and demographics, at appropriate levels of physical exertion for their age. This paper discusses a multidisciplinary approach to analyzing the user experience and reassessment of the context of use of the Age Invaders system. This paper tests the effectiveness of the system in promoting the intended design goals and the results show strong support for intergenerational interaction using digital technology. Additionally, the results of the study help to focus the refinements of the existing platform and development of further novel games and interactive applications for this mixed reality system, and provide insights into the user in complex mixed reality experiences.

Are artificial team-mates scapegoats in computer games

In cooperative games that involve team-mates that are controlled by either a computer or another human player, is there a difference in how humans assign credit or blame? There has been some related work on computers as team-mates and credit/blame assignment, but there does not seem to have been work to show whether the belief that a team-mate is human or not affects this. A qualitative study was conducted, in which 16 participants played variations of a team-based game with one of four kinds of team-mates: human (real or perceived) or AI (real or perceived). The two main findings of this research are that the perception of whether a team-mate is human or computer results in different credit/blame assignment and results in inaccurate skill assessment.

Designing a Mixed Reality Intergenerational Entertainment System

This chapter presents steps for designing an intergenerational mixed reality entertainment system, which focuses on physical and social interactions using a mixed reality floor system. The main design goals include the following: facilitating interactions between users with varied levels of skill in utilizing technology, utilizing the familiar physical motions from other activities to make an intuitive physical interface, and encouraging social interactions among families and friends. Detailed implementation of these steps is presented in the design of our intergenerational entertainment system, Age Invaders. Our design process is based on user-centered design. The results of the study help to focus the refinements of the existing platform from a usability standpoint and also aid in the development of new physical entertainment and interactive applications. This study provides insights into user issues including how users interact in a complex mixed reality experience.

What we have here is a failure of companionship: communication in goal-oriented team-mate games

There is a fairly common assumption about real-time, goal oriented, multiplayer games: communication is primarily appreciated (and used) for more effectively attaining goals. But an interesting question that does not seem to have been explored in the literature is whether the desire for companionship is a significant factor in peoples desire for and use of communication channels in real-time, goal-oriented, cooperative games. A qualitative study was conducted in which 40 participants played variations of a real-time, goal-oriented, cooperative game with either human or artificial (AI) team-mates, using different communication modalities. Participants consistently expressed a strong desire for the ability to communicate with a team-mate, arguing that it made gameplay more effective and more enjoyable. The significant finding of this study is that in some cases, the strong desire for (and use of) communication channels in realtime, goal-oriented, cooperative games seems to actually be more of a desire for (and experience of) social companionship.

Editorial: interactive play and learning for children

1Mixed Reality Lab, Interactive and Digital Media Institute (IDMI), National University of Singapore, 21 Lower Kent Ridge Road, Singapore 119077 2Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University, Kanagawa-ken 223-8522, Japan 3MIT Media Lab, School of Architecture and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307, USA 4NEC Design, Ltd., Shinagawa-Ku, Tokyo 141-0031, Japan