Designing for exploratory play with a hackable digital musical instrument

McPherson, Andrew P.; Chamberlain, Alan; Hazzard, Adrian; McGrath, Sean; Benford, Steve

Abstract

This paper explores the design of digital musical instruments (DMIs) for exploratory play. Based on Gaver's principles of ludic design, we examine the ways in which people come to terms with an unfamiliar musical interface. We describe two workshops with the D-Box, a DMI designed to be modified and hacked by the user. The operation of the D-Box is deliberately left ambiguous to encourage users to develop their own meanings and interaction techniques. During the workshops we observed emergent patterns of exploration which revealed a rich process of exploratory play. We discuss our observations in relation to previous literature on appropriation, ambiguity and ludic engagement, and we provide recommendations for the design of playful and exploratory interfaces.

Citation

McPherson, A. P., Chamberlain, A., Hazzard, A., McGrath, S., & Benford, S. (2016). Designing for exploratory play with a hackable digital musical instrument. In DIS '16: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (1233-1245). https://doi.org/10.1145/2901790.2901831

• Conference Name: ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS 2016)
• Conference Location: Brisbane, QLD, Australia
• Start Date: Jun 4, 2016
• End Date: Jun 8, 2016
• Acceptance Date: Mar 7, 2016
• Publication Date: Jun 4, 2016
• Deposit Date: May 9, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 4, 2016
• Journal: ACM SIGCHI Designing Interactive Systems (DIS 2016)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 1233-1245
• Book Title: DIS '16: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
• ISBN: 9781450340311
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2901790.2901831
• Keywords: Musical, Hackable, Instrument, HCI, Design, Innovation, Ludic design; ambiguity; musical instruments; exploration; play; hacking
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/796689
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2901790.2901831
• Related Public URLs: http://www.dis2016.org
• Additional Information: "© ACM 2016. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2901790.2901831