Assignment: PACT Analysis

We were to do a PACT analysis on a limited activity involving IT systems for this assignment. We chose to do our analysis on a GPS Navigation system. For validating our analysis we actually did a live test which was basically driving from Skogas to Farsta and video taping the whole experience. We made Annika drive the car since she had never drove on this route before so it was the perfect example of a person driving on a new route using a GPS navigation system.  


Our PACT analysis can be found here

Article Research Assignment

While browsing the articles relating to interactive media and games I came across this article which really caught my attention. Having been playing all sorts of games for a very long time I never realized the idea that games could actually be used as a medium to advertize products. Now that I think of it I can recall all the games that had some sub-conscious impact on me and made me remember the brand names e.g. games like “Pepsi man”, “Red bull bike racing”, “Riches of LU” etc.  

The article ”Product Placement in Interactive Games” presents arguments the on the effectiveness of advertising though interactive games and explains how it can be done with the factors hindering future development and costing issues. The best part of the article is when the authors present their pint of view using the statistical analysis giving out graphs and tables with figures using the surveys they carried out. The article concludes that generally gamers are not conscious about advertising being done in games and thus it does not impact the appeal of games.  While in other cases where the central idea of a game is to stimulate actual products the users can tell of the presence of advertising being done in games thus the appeal of the game may be affected a little. Either way in future big consumer brands are expected to feature more in simulation based games as it does influences in the purchasing decisions of the gamers.

Reference:

Dr. Barry Ip (2009) "Product Placement in Interactive Games", Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Computer Enterntainment Technology. Avaliable at: <http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1690388.1690404&coll=Portal&dl=GUIDE&CFID=102241083&CFTOKEN=39759282>

What makes interactive media so interesting?

The most interesting thing about interactive media is its vast applicability into various areas and its capacity of having a high impact on us humans. The combination of these properties is what makes it such a dominant field of study. The idea of the interactiveness and indulgence is what makes it all so appealing.

The most impressive of the interactive media concepts in play can be seen in e-learning  & virtual reality systems, video games and simulations. With the blend of psychology and cognitive science with interactive media excellent educational systems are being produced. Now students have the liberty of learning at their own pace. The educational systems are now much more responsive and tend to cater to the emotions and actions of the user.  Now it is possible for a person to feel what it is like to be in space or the feeling of flying a jet aircraft by the use of respective simulators and without the actual dangers of the real scenario.   

In the field of entertainment and advertisement interactive media has had a high impact. It is amusing to see how some interactive ads make us buy things we don’t actually need and how they tend to have an impact on us on the sub-conscious level. The new media is not only giving us information by is also forming our opinions. It literally has the power to change our thinking patterns.

Now it is important to see if the use of interactive media is being made to cause a positive or a negative impact. Is it being used for the good or for evil, for brainwashing people or for teaching good moral and ethical values? Since in the end it is not the technology/science that is good or bad but the way we use it. 

Synchronous Collaboration Assignment

The distance collaboration assignment was definitely a new and a fun experience. It did not turn out to be much difficult since it was just two of us working in the group. We took in turns to give description of our physical environment. I took my notes in short points which I then shaped into sentence structure eventually forming them into a single paragraph.

We encountered a few problem while editing the Google document. It worked fine till we were taking notes from each others descriptions but the problem started when we started uploading the pictures in the Google doc as it became really slow. I eventually lost access to the document when i refreshed the page, as it would not load and thus was not able to even edit the text on the document. After repeated tries I eventually ended with me sending my finalized text to my group partner who put it in my text in the document for me.

Other than that the rest went fine. It was rather easy giving the description of my environment and making an idea about the environment that my group partner was in. I definitely consider that sharing of pictures is an excellent way to clear the wage ideas one forms in his mind after hearing the description that you get from the other person. As initially when my group partner told me about the painting on her wall I heard her incorrectly and formed a completely different picture in my mind to what it actually was. I thought it was a picture of magnets in the water (considering that it was abstract art i thought it could be possible) while it was actually was a painting of two octopi in the water. In the end it could be safe to say that the distance collaboration can be effectively done using the current available tools and technologies as long as the group size is remains small (with increase in the number of people it would make it difficult).

Link to the assignment