INTERACTION DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR INTERACTIVE ...

HistoryIQ is a good example of the meaningful gaming experience that can be
achieved when interactivity is integrated into the game show from the very beginning.
The experience is a highly participatory one, made more challenging by the
synchronization between player at home and the same time constraints faced by the
broadcast contestants. The networked platform allows users to compete against a real
viewing community who are all interacting at the same time.
It is difficult to force non-linear content onto a linear platform; conceiving of the
experience as a convergent one from the beginning helped to make History IQ a
compelling experience for the users playing along at home.
As a noted exception to this principle, however, retrofitted iTV applications have
worked well for educational programs and documentaries. Such programs have such
depth of information that hundreds of hours of footage is often cut due to time
constraints; however, the viewing demographic is often eager to learn more about the
topic at hand. Here, iTV applications can and do take advantage of the encyclopedic
property of the medium. Retrofitted applications such as the digital enhancements to the
Ken Burns documentary Frank Lloyd Wright (PBS, 2000) or the interactive documentary
prototype Woodrow Wilson (KCET/CPB, 2001) were designed especially well for this
purpose. In fact, PBS won one of the interactive world’s most prestigious awards – the
Milia d’Or – for the Frank Lloyd Wright application in 2000. Likewise, the Woodrow
Wilson DVD, designed by Dale Herigstad, was awarded the prestigious Communication
Arts Interactive Design award and a BDA Gold award for DVD Design.
In most cases, however, retrofitting interactivity – particularly utilizing iTV as a
platform to deliver trivia – does not maximize the affordances of the medium. In recent
years, a few of the prototypes that have been developed at the AFI eTV Workshop have
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