Gortekar_Film Pastiche

I694 THESIS 2014
Human-Computer Interaction Design Program
School of Informatics & Computing
Indiana University at Bloomington
ADVISORS OF RECORD
• Eli Blevis, Associate Professor of Informatics
Director of the HCI/d Program, Instructor of Record
• Travis Brown, Associate Instructor
• Yue Pan, Associate Instructor
• Tan Haodan, Associate Instructor
CORE HCI/D FACULTY ADVISORS
• Erik Stolterman, Professor of Informatics
• Marty Siegel, Professor of Informatics
• Jeff Bardzell, Associate Professor of Informatics
• Shaowen Bardzell, Associate Professor of Informatics
• Norman Makoto Su, Associate Professor of Informatics
MANALI GORTEKAR
Indiana University–School of Informatics & Computing
919 E 7th Street–Bloomington, IN 47408
mgorteka@indiana.edu
FILM PASTICHE: LEVERAGING THE ‘LIVED
EXPEREINCE’ OF FILMS TO INNOVATE DESIGNS
h c
i d

I 694 Thesis FILM PASTICHE: LEVERAGING THE ‘LIVED EXPEREINCE’ OF FILMS TO INNOVATE DESIGNS M ay 6, 2014 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREDISPOSITIONS
X
X INSIGHTS
RESEARCH
X
X CONCEPTS
X PROTOTYPES
X STRATEGIES
X SYNTHESIS
X TESTING
X FINAL DESIGN
X APPENDIX

PREDISPOSITIONS
1. MOST OF THE PEOPLE OFTEN WATCH FILMS AND ENJOY TALKING
ABOUT IT
Most of the people watch films. Films are one of the
major entertaining and communication media people
have adapted to. Some people enjoy talking about their
experience of watching a film to others. They like to
share their opinions and give recommendations to
prospective viewers.
Fig(1). People discussing films

PREDISPOSITIONS
2. WATCHING A FILM IS ‘AN EXPERIENCE’
A film has a beginning and end. It is consists of ele-
ments like - script, background score, location setting,
costumes, actors, camera angle, dialogues, cinema-
tography, etc. The holistic effect of all the components
have an impact on the viewers. Some information is
communicated directly through the medium (like the
main theme of the story) while some is indirectly com-
municated (like the local culture).
A typical film theatre consist of a huge screen on
which the film is usually showcased. There is a specific
arrangement of chairs for people to sit. The setting
is usually dark and the place has an enhanced audio
effect.
These elements add to the experience of watching a
film. Therefore, I call it ‘an experience’.
Fig(1). Spectator watching a film

PREDISPOSITIONS
3. FEW FILMS HAVE AN ABILITY TO MAKE A DEEPER IMPACT ON
SOME PEOPLE.
People feel deeply moved by few films. They have a
stronger influence in their lives. There can be several
reasons why people associate themselves to films. One
of the main reasons being they are able to resonate
with the characters, settings and the story line. The film
seems ‘real’ to them.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-moral-molecule/200902/why-we-cry-movies
Fig(1). People reacting to films

RESEARCH
OVERVIEW
This research section will provide three types of research - primary
research, collections and secondary research. The primary research
inludes movie screening activity, interviews and participant observation.
The secondary research includes ACM papers, Literature reviews, blog
posts, Interaction culture paper writing assignment and Journal articles.
Finally, the collection consist of few Indian movies that resonate with
me.
1. Understanding films 2. Understanding the notion 3. Understanding people
from an outsider’s perspective of ‘felt -life’ and their context
MY JOURNEY
CONVENTIONS
Interviews Participant observation Paper writing assignment
Movie screening
activity
Collection
Literature review
ACM papers Blog posts Journal articles

PRIMARY RESEARCH
MOVIE SCREENING ACTIVITY
On Saturday 22nd Feb 2014, I screened a film ‘Dhobi Ghat’ - an Indian
drama film at Human Computer Interaction design (HCI) studio, Indiana
University. There were four participants, each one of them non- Indian.
The purpose of this activity was to find out what insights can designers get
just by watching a foreign (non-American) film.
The activity:
The film duration was of 90 mins. Light refreshments were provided as
incentives for participants. After the film, a discussion session was con-
ducted where following topics were discussed:
1. Striking features about the film
2. Resonance with any one of the characters of the film
3. What have we learned as designers
4. Suggestions for improving this activity
INSIGHTS
1. Films cannot be used for user research.
2. Analyzing films can be a start of what questions to be asked in research.
3. Watching foreign (non-American) films helps in getting rid of all the
silliness of observing a new place and look for deeper meanings of arti-
facts.
4. Understanding the culture by comparing it with other is natural and
effective.
5. There needs to be more structure to the analysis of films.
‘Understanding films from
an outsider’s perspective’
Fig (1). Participants watching the film
Fig (2). Activty synthesis

PRIMARY RESEARCH
MOVIE SCREENING ACTIVITY
Fig (1). Participant questions Fig (2). Participant doodling
Fig (3). Participants watching Fig (4). Movie screening

PRIMARY RESEARCH
INTERVIEWS
Interviews have been my primary source of understanding the relation
between films and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) field.
I have divided interview sessions in two parts:
1. Interviews with designers
2. Discussion meetings (this includes discussions with professors of both
Human Computer Interaction design program and department of com-
munication and cultural studies)
Interviews I have conducted:
1.Three designers (Master students of HCI program at Indiana University)
2.Discussion meetings -
Human Computer Interaction design professors -
Prof. Shaowen Bardzell
Prof. Jeffery Bardzell
Prof. Marty Siegel
Communication and Culture department -
Prof. Ted Stiphas
Prof. Joan Hawkins
Interview questions for designers:
1. Are you a movie buff ?
2. How many films do you watch weekly ?
3. What is your favourite genre of films ?
4. Do you watch foreign films ?
5. Why do you watch foreign films ?
6. What do you observe while watching foreign films ?
7. Have you done any analysis of films formally/informally ?
8. How effective you think film analysis can lead to cultural insights ?
9. What can be the takeaways as designers from films ?
The meeting discussion sessions were conducted mainly to seek guid-
ance and direction from professors for the capstone project. I haven’t
recorded them but they have played an important role in shaping my
understanding of relation between the two fields - films and HCI.
Fig (1). Interview session
Fig (2). Interview session
*Images captured by Jordan Hayes

PRIMARY RESEARCH
INSIGHTS
1. Disseminating culture specific information through the medium of
films is easier.
“It makes more sense to see something in the context of culture while
watching a film that would not have made sense otherwise. Eg: Café having
cigarette shops in the French film Amelie. “
3. Films is an effective medium of storytelling . It has an ability to invoke
feelings.
“I get this nostalgic feeling everytime I watch it. Its totally different culture
but feels like home in a weird way”
4. While studying foreign (non-American) films, most of the people are
aware that a film cannot represent an entire culture accurately.
5. There are commonalities between movie making and design process.
There are a lot of creative excercises that designers can adapt from movie
making process like - method acting, hero’s journey.
6. People see different things while watching a film.
Some analyze the technical aspect (Eg: Camera angle and positioning)
while others focus on the theme of the story while watching a film.
7. People watch foreign (non-American) films for various reasons.
Some people watch foreign films because of their favorite director/actors
while others watch because the film is acclaimed. People watch foreign
films to explore different perspectives.
Important quotes:
“I really get interested in knowing about what was happening in the country
when the film was made”
“When a directors sets up a shot for a film, nothing from that shot happens
by accident. Somebody is there looking at every detail. “
“What I am seeing could be true but its not the only truth”
“Foreign film can lead to cultural insights by examining films in a deep way
. You learn something about the culture that created the film - both from the
way it is depicted and from what is being depicted. Not only what they are
showing you but why they chose to show you. “
“ Interest began in the films when I really started paying attention to what
they had to say.”
Fig (1). Interview synthesis

PRIMARY RESEARCH
PARTICPANT OBSERVATION
Participated in Latino film festival
On 5th of April, I participated in Latino film festival at IU Cinema. I went
and watched my first Latino film (foreign culture), jotted down my expe-
rience while watching it and conducted a short survey to know the reason
behind people attending the festival.
I watched a film named ‘Jean Gentil’ in spanish language with English
subtitles. It was a 84 minutes drama film that was based on a true story of
Jean Gentil, a well educated Haitian man who undertakes a voyage across
the country asking god what he wants him to be. The film intimately
portrayed the character’s life style, his relationship to other people, his
believes, Idiosyncrasies, etc. While watching the film, it ‘felt real’ to me.
Reflection on my experience
It was the first time that I watched a Latino film. The foreign land and cul-
ture seemed strangely familiar to me. I started comparing the city scape
to the cities I already know. In the film, I observed things like - the roads,
public transportations, houses and life styles of people. It all seemed
normal and familiar to me, except the people - they looked very different
from the ones that lived in my city. As I was watching the film, I felt some
disconnection with the narrative - it can be because of the language. I
interpreted most of the story based on my understanding and knowledge
about the culture.
Right from the beginning the film intimately portrayed a character named
Jean Gentil with whom I could empathize. The narrative had a specific
beginning, middle part and an end. The beginning and the end caught my
attention due to drama and lots of conversation and action between Jean
and the other characters. The middle part felt slacky due to absence of the
dialogues. The filmmakers technique of showing video clips as pictorial
representation of the protagonist’s lifestyle and struggle could have been
more engaging. It was then when I realized that experience of watching
a foreign film is completely different from watching normal films. I felt
exhausted. I realized that watching an entire film is not the best way to
understand a culture.
‘Understanding the notion
of ‘felt-life’
Fig (1). Jean Gentil - the film Fig (2). Viewers of the film
Fig (3). Q&A session with director after the film Fig (4). Discussion with director

PRIMARY RESEARCH
PARTICPANT OBSERVATION
Participated in Latino film festival (Contd.)
After the film, I conducted a short survey with 2 men and 3 women.
While analyzing, I observed that the common reason participants
watched this films was to get “explore different perspectives” and observe
different film making styles. Two quote, in particular, stood out to me.
“ Truly, I haven’t read much into it but this particular film sort of opened
my eyes to different cultures in the world. “
“ I am very interested in foreign narrative styles. Since I don’t read foreign
literature, it is the best way for me to experience that perspective.”
Interestingly, when asked about ‘the accuracy of cultural portrayal in
foreign film’, most of them wrote “it depends on the film” but one of them
who was not familiar to the Latino culture wrote that he “felt this film
portrayed the culture accurately enough” Thus, all the participants inter-
preted the film differently.
Survey questions:
1. Participant Info (Name, Age, Gender, Favorite film genres)
2. Do you watch foreign films?
2.1. Why do you watch foreign films?
2.2.What key elements you notice while watching a foreign film
2.3. How accurately you think film portray culture
3. What made you decide to come to Latino film festival?
of ‘felt-life’
Takeaways:
1. Watching full length films to get insights on the culture may not be the
best way to explore and understand it.
Depending upon the design requirement, a small aspect of one culture
could be explored well in a film/films than getting overwhelmed with all
cultural aspects.
2. Everyone interprets films differently
Film watching experience is unique to everyone. It is shaped by the
person’s background - values and the culture he comes from. For some
people, a film may seem ‘real’ while others may feel disconnected. Thus,
everyone’s interpretation of a film is not same.
Fig (5). Survey Paper

COLLECTION
COLLECTION OF INDIAN FILMS
Films that are based on Mumbai lifestyle
This is a sample collection of Indian films that resonate the most with me
and portray everyday experiences of people. I am positioning myself as
a strong subject in this case. Following are the common themes of these
films:
1. Very Intimate portryal of characters.
2. All the characters are common people earning their living in a city.
3. They represent different facets of the society.
4. The films are directed by experienced renowned Indian directors.
5. All of them are fairly recent.
6. Story - an important element of these films.
7. Very much grounded and culture specific.
of ‘felt-life’
Released - 2010
source: http://www.impawards.com/intl/india/2011/
dhobi_ghat.html
Released - 2007
source: http://www.apunkachoice.com/titles/taa/
taare-zameen-par/mid_16529/photos.html
Released - 2013
source: http://www.impawards.com/intl/in-
dia/2013/bombay_talkies_ver3.html
Released - 2014
source: http://www.metromatinee.com/movie-
review/the-lunchbox-movie-review-340

SECONDARY RESEARCH
LITERATURE REVIEW
Aaron Marcus - The Past 100 Years of the Future
Reference:
Marcus, Aaron . “HCI in Sci-FI of Other Countries and
Cultures.” In 100 years of the future. Berkeley, CA: Aaron
Marcus and Associates, Inc., 2012. .
Reason for inclusion: Aaron Marcus’ work was the main
inspiration behind choosing this capstone. He has done
some research in Sci-fi films and proposed how it’s usage
in Human Computer Interaction design field.
Takeaway :
The main takeaway from this book for me is the connec-
tion between films and HCI field. Aaron Marcus proposed
a the framework of analysis points for films for designs.
1. Proposed analysis points for films
“A typical taxonomy of HCI components that might be
featured in sci-fi literature and media might include focus on
the following:
Hardware
Software
User community
Subject-matter content
Metaphors
Mental models
Navigation
Interaction
Appearance” [Aaron Marcus, p. 17, 2012]
“ In future studies of the relation of sci-fi to HCI, students
may cross-tabulate that list with a typical taxonomy of the
science-fiction literature, which might inclue the following:
Genre
Story narrative
Technology
Society
Temporal view
Culture
Hardware
Software
Medium.” [Aaron Marcus, p. 17, 2012]
2. Culture in the films
“The study of Indian and Chinese approaches to metaphors,
mental models, navigation, interaction, and appearance,
where it is not a derivative copy of Western approaches but
more revealing creations based on different cultures, will,
I believe, be worth much further study. Additional studies
may reveal cross-cultural influencs of one genre upon the
other, e.g., the Hollywood influence on Indian sci-fi, or the
Hong Kong action-films influence on Hollywood sci-fi.”
[Aaron Marcus, p. 157, 2012]
100 years of the future - Aaron Marcus

SECONDARY RESEARCH
LITERATURE REVIEW
Jeffrey Bardzell - Machinimatic realism: capturing and
presenting the “real world” of video games
Reference:
Lowood, Henry. “Machinimatic realism: capturing and
presenting the “real world” of video games” In The ma-
chinima reader. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2011.
Reason for inclusion: Prof. Jeffery Bardzell suggested me
to refer his chapter when I told him that I am struggling
with realism in cinema. In the chapter, he has compared
machinima realism to the realism in cinema
Takeaway : I got an overview of realist theory in cinema.
While dealing with ‘film analysis’ for design, I got a lot of
skepticism regarding the reality portrayed in it. This article
helped me understand realism as a rhetorical perspective,
essential for designers.
1. Types of views - Instrumental and immersive
“By instrumental view, I mean that one could imagine that
the virtual world is merely an instrument, a neutral vessel,
in which a machinimator is the source of content or mean-
ing, and the game world is simply and incidentally the space
in which it unfolds. According to immersive view, the game
world is the real content and a machinima video cannot
have any meaning that is not bound up in it in some way.”
[Jeffery Bardzell, p. 20, 2011]
2. Bazins cinematic techniques for depicting realism in
film
“Bazin connects specific cinematic production techniques
with the meaning of the film as it is experienced by the
viewer. In a realist film, action unfolds within lengthy, deep
focused, wide shots, that is, shots that have few cuts, are
equally in focus in both the foreground and the background,
and taken in whole scenes, as opposed to a reliance on close-
ups. The benefit of composing events in such shots, for Bazin,
is threefold: such composition “brings the spectator into a
relationship with the image closer to that which he [sic] en-
joys with reality”; such shots bring about in viewers “a more
active mental attitude,” because viewers have some choice as
to which parts of the scene they attend to; and finally the re-
introduction of ambiguity into the film, because such filming
techniques do not predetermine the meaning of the shot.”
[Jeffery Bardzell, p. 4, 2011]
3. Jeffery Bardzell’s 5 key premises of realism in film
theory
1. A useful distinction can be made between films that seek
to represent external reality in a more or less faithful way,
and films that seek to present artistic visions of reality. These
two “tendencies” have been named realism and expression-
ism/ formativism, respectively.
2. The question of realism extends beyond mere aesthetic
preferences and becomes engaged in much larger philosophi-
cal considerations of reality and epistemology, as well as
ethical and political considerations. In other words, much
more is a stake for realism than a taste for a certain kind of
film.
3. Realism is, among other things, a practical achievement of
certain production practices, including set design, uses of the
camera, and editing techniques.
4. Realism, rather than an effect caused by reality, can
instead be seen as a rhetorical or discursive effect. That is,
realist film is not actually a transparent window on reality,
but rather a style that imitates or presents itself as such a
window.
5. Realism can be seen as inhering not in a causal relation-
ship between reality and film, but rather as inhering in a
structured set of correspondences between a presentation of
reality on film and the presentation of reality given to us by
our perceptions as embodied subjects in a three-dimensional
world. [Jeffery Bardzell, p. 5, 2011]
4. Four dominant styles of reality portrayal
1. Portraying reality as if it had been merely recorded. (Ob-
jectively oriented)
2. Presenting reality in a stylized way to facilitate fantasy
andexpression. (Subjectively oriented)
3. Presenting reality by staging it in a clarifying, yet truthful,
way. (Objectively oriented)
4. Presenting reality through structural correspondence to
viewers’ phenomenological experience. (Subjectively ori-
ented) [Jeffery Bardzell, p. 6, 2011]
Machinimatic realism
of ‘felt-life’

SECONDARY RESEARCH
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Elliot W. Eisner - Connoisseurship, criticism and the art of
education
Reference:
Smith, M. K. (2005) ‘Elliot W. Eisner, connoisseurship,
criticism and the art of education’, the encyclopaedia of
informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/eisner.htm.
Reason for inclusion: This article was a part of Experience
design course that I took in spring 2013. It was regarding
criticism and connoisseurship, being important for educa-
tion. It helped me justify my direction of film analysis for
capstone.
Takeaway : This article answered my question: “What
is the value of analyzing films for designers?” It was
something that I often came across while explaining my
capstone topic to professors/designers.
1. What is connoisseurship
“Connoisseurship is the art of appreciation. It can be dis-
played in any realm in which the character, import, or value
of objects, situations, and performances is distributed and
variable, including educational practice.
Connoisseurship is something that needs to be worked at –
but it is not a technical exercise. The bringing together of the
different elements into a whole involves artistry.”
[Mark K. Smith, 2005]
2. What is criticism
“If connoisseurship is the art of appreciation, criticism is the
art of disclosure. Criticism, as Dewey pointed out in Art as
Experience, has at is end the re-education of perception…
The task of the critic is to help us to see.
Thus… connoisseurship provides criticism with its subject
matter. Connoisseurship is private, but criticism is public.
Connoisseurs simply need to appreciate what they encounter.
Critics, however, must render these qualities vivid by the
artful use of critical disclosure.
Criticism can be approached as the process of enabling oth
ers to see the qualities of something.” [Mark K. Smith, 2005]
3. Importance of criticism
“effective criticism functions as the midwife to perception. It
helps it come into being, then later refines it and helps it to
become more acute.
Educators also need to develop the ability to work with oth-
ers so that they may discover the truth in situations, experi-
ences and phenomenon.” [Mark K. Smith, 2005]
4. Knowledge according to Eisner
“Eisner argues that cognition frequently approached as a
phenomenon that deals with knowing rather than feel-
ing. For Elliot Eisner, knowledge cannot be just a verbal
construct (and constrained by the structures of language).
Rather, as Lloyd-Zannini (1998) has put it (after Eisner)
‘knowledge is an intensely variable and personal “event”,
something acquired via a combination of one’s senses –
visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory – assembled
according to a personal schema, and then made public –
expressed, typically, by the same sensory modalities utilized
in the initial acquisition’.” [Mark K. Smith, 2005]
Connoisseurship and Criticism - Eisner
of ‘felt-life’

SECONDARY RESEARCH
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Usha Iyer - Book Review of WORLD FILM LOCATIONS:
MUMBAI
Reference:
Iyer, Usha. “Book review: World Film locations: Mumbai.”
Wide Screen 5. http://widescreenjournal.org/index.php/
journal/issue/view/7 (accessed ).
Reason for inclusion: I read a journal introduction -Wide
screen that had seven essays on Indian cinemas. The book
review was one of the essay in the journal. It was regarding
the films based on Mumbai which is my area of Interest in
capstone.
Takeaway : This essay basically gave me references of
books regarding Indian cinema that are typically based
in Mumbai. They dealt with the notion of “realism” and
“culture portrayal” while watching the films.
1. Rise of cinematic city paradigm
“Cinema-city nexus emphasize the similarities in the senso-
rial, haptic fascination of the cultural form of cinema and
the social organization of the city for the spectator-flâneur/
flâneuse. The flickering images of the cinema are seen to be
consonant with “the experiences offered by the flickering,
virtual presence of the city” (Clarke 10).
2. Bombay cinema: An archive of the city
“Mazumdar’s book, Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the
City, is the most in-depth exploration of the cinematic city
paradigm in the Indian context, and extends the modernity-
urbanism-cinema relation that characterizes this area of
study by arguing for Bombay cinema as a “hidden archive of
the modern,” where “it is through the fleeting yet
memorable forms of urban life in popular Bombay
cinema that the texture of modernity in India can be
understood””[Usha Iyer,p. 3,2012]
3. Counter Bollywood
“The result is a mixed bag of observations, mostly on
contemporary cinema, ranging from introductory essays on
popular Hindi cinema and on its post-liberalization avatar:
Bollywood, to more engaging discussions of “Counter-Bol-
lywood,” “Mumbai Noir,” and representations of communal
conflict in Bombay cinema.” [Usha Iyer,p. 3,2012]
4. Realist genre
“The common factor in all of the films she cites is the use of
city locations to generate the verisimilitude that produces
the “reality effect” of this kind of “realist” cinema. What is
interesting is the relation of stardom to this production of
realism. It is the lesser-known actors of these Counter-Bolly-
wood films, who are less likely to be recognized and mobbed,
that enable these films to be shot in Bombay’s streets, parks,
restaurants, buses etc.” [Usha Iyer,p. 5,2012]
5. Criticism to the book: World film locations: Mumbai
The lack of attention paid to spatial practices in the city, or
to the characters that define cinematic Bombay (after all,
cities are located as much in their people as in their places)
highlights further the volume’s somewhat narrow conception
of the term, “location.” [Usha Iyer,p. 6,2012]
Book Review of World Film Locations
of ‘felt-life’

SECONDARY RESEARCH
LITERATURE REVIEW
Helio San Miguel - WORLD FILM LOCATIONS: MUM-
BAI
Reference:
Miguel, Helio. “Mumbai : City of imagination.” In World
film location: Mumbai. Bristol: Intellect, 2012
Reason for inclusion: After reading the book review in
wide screen journal, I got curious to take a look at this
book as it consisted of detailed analysis of film scenes shot
in Mumbai
Takeaway : This book supported my decision of why I
chose to represent Mumbai culture in films as a part of
my capstone. The term ‘Cinematic city’- a city created by
cinema which is inhabited by the viewers of the film, was
an important term.
1. Cinema in Indians and vice versa
“Through the movies, Indians have been living in Bombay
all their lives, even those who have never actually been here.
(Suketu Mehta in Maximum City: Bombay Lost an found
(2004 Pg 350)”
2. Cinematic Mumbai
“Cinematic Mumbai is the metaphor of an urban reality
where all the stories are possible and all the dreams can be
fulfilled.” [ Miguel Helio, p. 6, 2012]
3. Mumbai, an ‘over painted courtesan
“‘At once seductive and revolting, is a fascinating, incom-
mensurable and chaotic metropolis of astonishing social,
religious and ethnic diversity, and heartbreaking extremes
where immsense wealth is just steps away from searing
poverty.’ Satyajit Ray” [ Miguel Helio, p. 6, 2012]
4. Scene analysis structure
Two pages (left and right) are dedicated for a scene analysis.
On the left page, the actual picture of the location is placed
along with the description of a film. (Description mainly
consisted of the film plot, history of the location and as-
sociated important events or role of famous actors, writ-
ers, directors in the film.) To the right, various film stills
along with scene description and timestamp is described.
No subjective analysis is done in the book. Its more like a
description of film scenes associated with specific locations of
Mumbai.
Analysis of Shree 420 film
Book Review of World Film Locations
WORLD FILM LOCATIONS: MUMBAI: Helio San
Miguel (http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/books/view-
Book,id=4944/)
of ‘felt-life’

SECONDARY RESEARCH
BLOG POST
Interaction Culture Blog
Reference:
O’ Donnell, Katie. “Study of Films and HCI.” . http://inter-
actioncultureclass.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/study-of-
film-and-hci/
Reason for inclusion: I am currently enrolled in ‘Interac-
tion culture’ course instructed by Prof. Jeffery Bardzell
where film criticism is a part of syllabus. In the class, we
study and practice criticism.There is a dedicated blog
where the students post their views and opinions about a
certain topic. There was one blog post written by Jeffery
Bardzell on 22nd Jan 2013 about how Films and HCI field
relate to each other. I have included this post with permis-
sion from Prof. Jeffery Barzell.
Takeaway :
I gave me a clearer understanding of how a humanist
approach in design has become important in third wave
HCI. Films (certain types) have been exploring the human
emotions, experiences through stotytelling since decades
which has become important for design.
1. Why film analysis is important to HCI
“And I note that filmmaking, film theory, and film criticism
are mature phenomena that have grappled for decades with
issues that we are beginning to deal seriously with in HCI–
identify, alienation, longing, hope, isolation, social participa-
tion and withdrawal, etc. Thus, it seems
obvious to me that film can and should be an intellectual
resource to help us make progress on issues in HCI/interac-
tion design.”
2. Difference between films and HCI
“Films tend to be strongly narrative (plot, characters, con-
flicts, point of view, etc.), while interaction designs are gener-
ally not. Issues such as emergence, usability, privacy, etc., are
not as central to film as they are to HCI, so I don’t mean to
overstate any equivalence between HCI and film.”
3. Films as a resource to HCI
“But inasmuch as we are (especially via experience design)
concerned with sociability, identity, emotional fulfillment,
meaningful life, etc., there is considerable overlap. And any
engagement with film literature (or, in Elizabeth’s case, a
good film) reveals how much work we have yet to do in
experience design–as Elizabeth clearly notes.”
4. Application of films to HCI
“What does this have to do with HCI? Well, a major part of
HCI’s agenda is ubiquitous computing, which is also about
constructing technologized spaces in which our everyday
lives will unfold. What Wong Kar-wai is doing fictionally on
film, we are bringing into reality in a literal sense.
What will the experiences of those spaces be like?
Are we creating places where people will flourish–profession-
ally, emotionally, physically, intellectually–or are we creating
urban nightmares?
How do we know?
Understanding the experience of our designs is no longer
“merely” an aesthetic question: we’re in them now, and
increasingly we can’t turn them off.”
Interaction culture blog

SECONDARY RESEARCH
BLOG POST
Interaction Culture Blog
Reference:
Gortekar, Manali. “Power dressing in films.” . http://inter-
actioncultureclass.wordpress.com/
Reason for inclusion: This is one of the few blogs posts that
I wrote for Interaction Culture class where I have explored
the concept of ‘Power dressing’ through rhetorical lense of
films. I analyzed the images portrayed in films for power-
ful women. The comments I have received for this blog
post have added to the dicussion regarding our normal
perception of power dressing for women.
Interaction culture blog
The main post Comments for the post

SECONDARY RESEARCH
WRITING ASSIGNMENT
Interaction culture
Criticism of reality in films - Research synthesis
(Rough outline of the paper)
Argument:
There is a value in criticizing the ‘real elements’ of films
(especially foreign films) for design.
By real elements I mean when viewers “feel real” after
watching a particular scene in the movie or when actors
establish authenticity to their characters by building up
their on-screen personality intricately.
By criticism I am mainly focusing on interpretation/cogni-
tive speculation of a shot in the film.
Why films:
Few films have an ability to offer an experience that will
make you believe their case. It establishes very ‘real’ or
genuine relation with the audience and wins their trust.
They have an ability to make something believable - even
though it might be a fantasy world or portrayal of a real
one.
Audience: Interaction designers
Why Interaction designers ?
1) Insufficient representationalism
“Areas of HCI for which representationalist approaches are
likely to fall short include user experience (UX), aesthetic in-
teraction, affective computing, intimate interaction, values-
centered design, and other areas of HCI that in one way or
another get at the deepest and most important dimensions
of human selfhood, social justice, and everyday life.” [Jeffery
Bardzell, p. 2, 2011]
2) Criticism can be beneficial in informing design process,
critiquing and innovating
“Interaction criticism can benefit HCI in several ways. It is a
strategy that enables design practitioners to engage with the
aesthetics of interaction, helping practitioners cultivate more
sensitive, insightful, and imaginative critical reactions to
designs and exemplars.” [Jeffery Bardzell, p. 3, 2011]
3) Art or criticism educates our perception and/or directs
our cognition
“art directs perception and cognition, challenging us to
make sense of material particulars in beautiful ways, and
in doing so improves our perceptual and imaginative
skills.” [Jeffery Bardzell, p. 6, 2011]
Four perspectives in Interaction criticism associated to
films:
Reference:
Bardzell, Jeffery . “Interaction criticism: An introduction
to the practice.” Interacting with Computers. www.elsevier
of ‘felt-life’
Interface
Film
Designer
Actor/writer/director Setting
Viewer
User
Social Context
Interaction criticism framework
Adaptation of framework according to films

SECONDARY RESEARCH
WRITING ASSIGNMENT
Interaction culture (Contd.)
Criteria for picking films:
Picked specific instances of cinema that made me feel
real while watching the film.I picked up the films on the
basis of their plot that I found interesting, directors who
directed it, actors and setting (most of them are not shot
on film sets but in real settings).
Example of such films:
1. Bombay Talkies (released 2013)
2. Dhobi Ghat (released 2010)
3. Lunchbox (released 2013)
4. Highway (released 2014)
I tried associating my notion of realism with Bazin’s
cinematic techniques that consisted of observing lengthy,
deep focused wide shots with few cuts, equal focus on
foreground and background but couldn’t do it. I felt more
‘real by watching actors act a particular scene than observ-
ing the setting in which they placed or techniques film
director used.
I am not denying that setting, cinematic techniques does
not play any role. I am stating that actors give more mean-
ing to them by their acting skills and going through all the
emotions themselves.
Analysis:
I chose to represent the realist element of a film by captur-
ing a still instead of clipping a movie scene because:
1) Sources of films are not downloadable.
2) There is an issue of when to analyze a scene - before,
during or after watching it, as all three experiences are
different.
Framework
Framework
of ‘felt-life’
Eight Part framework of Interaction criticism Rough Translation in still analysis
Stylistic reference
Standards and conformance to tradition ..... …… Modern and traditional elements
Materiality and remediation
Genre ..... …… Genre
Functional Vs. Cultural dimension
Representational techniques ..... …… Camera movement, focus and position
Challenges to user expectation
Capacity for unanticipated use ..... …… How can flms be related to design ?
Eight part framework of Interaction criticism
Stylistic reference
Standards and conformance to tradition
Materiality and remediation
Genre
Functional Vs. Cultural dimension
Representational techniques
Challenges to user expectation
Capacity for unanticipated use
Adaptation of framework

SECONDARY RESEARCH
WRITING ASSIGNMENT
After iterations on framework, I decided to make a card
deck of still analysis.
Following is the cards that I have made by analyzing still
from the movie ‘Bombay Talkies’. I have made a collection
of 10 cards based on this framework. (Refer pg. 100 for the
collection )
Card deck (front)
Film name and release year
Genre
Image of a film still or a shot
Plot of the film
Scene description
Camera position, movement and focus
Card deck (Back)
Background (Character and shot analysis)
Value for design
‘Understanding people and
their context’
LUNCHBOX (2014)
Epistolary romantic film
Plot:The film outlines a romantic story between
a man (widower) and a married woman and
exchange of their letters via lunchbox.
Background
Modes of communication
Ila ,a married woman, wants to seek her hus-
band’s attention through food. She cooks daily
meal to send it to her husband in a lunch box.
She soon discovers that lunch box is getting de-
livered to wrong address. She writes to find out
who the person is at the other end and sends it
via lunchbox and gets reply via empty lunch box
Scene: Saajan (protagonist) happily opens his
lunch box but finds a letter beneath chapati (In-
dian bread). He is opening the letter to read it.
Camera position: Wide
movement: pan focus: deep
Value for design
Observing how people try different modes of
communication can inspire designers for de-
signing innovative systems. Understanding what
significance it has in a culture, which activity is
associated with it, will help them in defining the
context for design. Also, the issue of accessibil-
ity and privacy could be observed more closely

SECONDARY RESEARCH
WRITING ASSIGNMENT
Problems in such analysis:
1. Director mediates viewer’s relationship to reality
Reality is yet another genre or a type of a film
“Realism is not, for MacCabe, a transparent mode of film-
making that reveals reality, but another style of film, that is,
another type or genre of discourse.” [ Jeffery Bardzell, p. 5,
2011]
2. Artists can leverage the medium of film to make it look
‘more realistic’
-It can objectively or subjectively oriented to viewers.

Value in analysis of reality:
1. Realism can be seen as a rhetoric
2. It can be seen as a structured set of correspondences
between a presentation of a reality on film and presenta-
tion of a reality given to us by our perceptions
3. It can improve designer’s sensibilities and judgments
References:
1. Bardzell, Jeffery . “Interaction criticism: An introduction
.com/locate/intcom (accessed ).
2. Lowood, Henry. “Machinimatic realism: capturing and
presenting the “real world” of video games” In The ma-
chinima reader. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2011.
3. Sources of films:
Lunch box: http://www.thiruttuvcd.me/2013/11/16/watch-
the-lunch-box-2013-hindi-full-movie-dvdscr-rip-watch-
online-for-free-download/
Bombay Talkies: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/
x179t3n_bombay-talkies-2013-watch-online-part-1_
shortfilms
Highway: http://www.desirockerz.net/latest-exclusive-
movie-hq/98729-highway-full-hindi-movie-hd-watch-
online-dvdscr.html
Dhobi Ghat: https://vimeo.com/19323724.
their context’

SECONDARY RESEARCH
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Jeffrey Bardzell - Interaction criticism: An introduction to
the practice
Reference:
Bardzell, Jeffery . “Interaction criticism: An introduction
.com/locate/intcom
Reason for inclusion: This reading was a part of Interac-
tion culture class. I thought it was very much realted to
my capstone as it dealt with the notion of importance of
Interaction criticism by designers.
Takeaway : I got an analysis framework for interaction
criticism based on which I have attempted to analyze few
movie scenes. It provides justification of what role does
interaction criticism play in design field and why is it
important.
1. Representatioanlism in HCI
“This paper argues that whereas in the past representation-
alism was a strong pragmatic fit for the knowledge needs
of HCI, in the present, there are some areas of HCI for
which representationalism is insufficient and will need to be
complemented with another set of assumptions and method-
ologies. I argue that criticism, carefully appropriated from
the arts and humanities, is one such practice.” [ Jeffery
2. Advantages of Interaction criticism
“ A central argument of this paper is that understanding
what criticism entails and accomplishes, as well as how its
claims and intellectual rigor are justified and evaluated by
peers, could help HCI develop more useful accounts of those
aspects of user experience, aesthetics, affective interaction,
value-centered design, and so forth than it presently can
with more empirical / representationalist strategies.
Benefits of such an engagement can include informing a par-
ticular design process, critiquing and innovating on design
processes and methods more generally, developing original
theory beneficial to interaction design, and exposing more
robustly the long-term and even unintended consequences of
designs.” [ Jeffery Bardzell, p. 3, 2011]
3. Designer as a critic
“To achieve the goal of becoming a thoughtful, reflective
designer, Löwgren & Stolterman propose four resources:
1. A sensibility regarding the qualities of designs and design
processes. 2.A developed language, by which I think they
mean a technical analytic vocabulary. 3.Reflective think-
ing, which emphasizes the interpreting subject’s awareness
of her- or himself in the development of one’s own thoughts.
4.Retrospective reflection, a speculative activity that explores
the ‘‘arguments and ideas that could explain a design.’’
[ Jeffery Bardzell, p. 8, 2011]
4. Framework for criticism
This guide consists of encouraging interaction designers
to consider the following 8-part framework as they study
interfaces:
1. Stylistic references.
2. Standards and conformance to tradition.
3. Materiality and remediation.
4. Genre.
5. Functional versus cultural dimensions of an interface.
6. Representational techniques.
7. Challenges to user expectations.
8. Capacity for unanticipated use.
[ Jeffery Bardzell, p. 8, 2011]
Interaction criticism
of ‘felt-life’

SECONDARY RESEARCH
LITERATURE REVIEW
Jeffrey Bardzell - Critical and Cultural Approaches to HCI
Reference:
Price, Sara, Carey Jewitt, and Barry Brown. “Critical and
Cultural Approaches to HCI.” In The Sage handbook of
digital technology research. London: SAGE Publications
Ltd, 2013
Reason for inclusion: This was one of the reading in
‘Foundations of HCI class which I took in first semester. In
order to understand why culture is important to design, I
referred this paper and found it really helpful.
Takeaway : I got an overview of the importance of criticim
and cultural theory in HCI. Some very basic definitions
and approaches on ‘User experience’ were cleared along
with a note on cultural HCI Methodological Innovations
that wasa very relevant to capstone.
1. Criticism as rational investigation of wisdom or
intuition
“These interrogations tend to emphasize one of the following
four fundamental perspectives:
1. The creator and the act and situation of creation.
2. The artifact itself.
3. The individual consumer, reader, or user and the experi-
ence.
4. The socio-cultural context.
We all use these four perspectives all the time. What cultural
scholarship adds to this are thousands of theories and
concepts applied to works from nearly every culture. Such
theories offer models that support our attempts to rationally
interrogate our intuitive reactions from each of these per-
spectives more rigorously and insightfully.
The challenge for interaction design professionals thus lies in
choosing and leveraging such theories to cultivate their intui-
tive reactions into intellectually useful design understand-
ings.” [Jeffery Bardzell, p. 12, 2013]
2. Definition of Critical design: Dunne and Raby
“It is a design approach for producing conceptual electronic
products that encourage complex and meaningful reflection
on inhabitation of a ubiquitous, dematerializing, and intel-
ligent environment: a form of social research to integrate
critical aesthetic experience with everyday life…I hope in my
approach I have retained the popular appeal of industrial
design while using it to seduce the viewer into the world
of ideas rather than objects. Industrial design locates its
object in a mental space concerned with identity, desire, and
fantasy and shaped by media.... Again, I hope this remains
intact but is subverted to challenge the aesthetic values of
both consumers and designers.
“But if [critical design] is to avoid accusations of escapism
this design thinking must also develop strategies for linking
itself to everyday life” [Jeffery Bardzell, p. 16, 2013]
3. Pastiche scenario in HCI
“The goal of a pastiche scenario is to interrogate the felt life
of interaction in much richer ways
For example, the authors used Bridget Jones to construct a
pastiche scenario about iPod use not only because she meets
the core demographic criteria of iPod users, but also because
“she brings more to the scenario than her age, occupation,
and gender” including a “distinctive narrative voice” and
very specific habits, such as her anxieties about how she is
perceived, her habits of linking specific songs to memories
of prior boyfriends, and a general sense of disorganization
in her everyday habits (1146). Pastiche scenarios pushes the
underlying logic of personas and scenarios—to put a human
face on data to help us understand it—to another level,
one of creative empathy with the felt life of others.” [Jeffery
4. Goal of cultural HCI
“Cultural HCI should have less to do with telling us about
culture and more to do with helping us improve culture. It
would be wrong, I argue, to see cultural approaches primar-
ily as another research lens to tell us what is out there in the
world; the social sciences are a better fit for this direction of
inquiry. Cultural approaches should be used to help HCI im-
prove our lived environment and improve ourselves.” [Jeffery
their context’
Critical and Cultural approaches to HCI

SECONDARY RESEARCH
ACM PAPERS
Bas Raijmakers, William W. Gaver, Jon Bishay - Design
Documentaries: Inspiring Design Research Through
Documentary Film
Reference:
Bas Raijmakers, William W. Gaver, and Jon Bishay. 2006.
Design documentaries: inspiring design research through
documentary film. In Proceedings of the 6th conference
on Designing Interactive systems (DIS ‘06). ACM, New
York, NY, USA, 229-238. DOI=10.1145/1142405.1142441
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1142405.1142441
Reason for inclusion: I got this from ACM digital library.
It is one of the fundamental research paper related to
capstone
Takeaway : I got an overview of the work done that makes
use of films in HCI.
1. Role of films in design
“For design research in HCI, film can be much more
than a note-taking tool; we can use it as a means to explore,
understand and present the everyday, and benefit from
film’s capabilities to preserve ambiguities and paradoxes
instead of resolving them into univocal conclusions.” [B.
Raijmakers, W. Gaver, J. Bishay, p. 1, 2006]
2. Documentary as dialectic
“What in the end makes documentaries dynamic and
interesting is, as Bruzzi [7] formulates it, the “dialectical
relationship between content or unadulterated truth and
representation”. Representations such as film are inherently
opinionated because they are inherently incomplete; it is
impossible for filmmakers to avoid making choices about
what is important. At the same time, filmmakers’ biases are
constrained by the material they have to film: documenta-
ries cannot simply invent the material they use.Design teams
may thoroughly research the people and situations for which
they are designing, but they must also develop a perspec
tive—a prioritised view—to direct their work. An important
role for design research in HCI is to
facilitate the emergence of the dialectic between user
research and design perspectives.” [B. Raijmakers, W. Gaver,
J. Bishay, p. 2, 2006]
3. Four different approaches to documentary filmmak-
ing:
“1. From Observation To Intervention In Cinéma Vérité:
Jean Rouch And Edgar Morin’s Chronique d’Un Été
They acknowledge the complexity of the everyday by par-
ticipating in it, co-operating with the people they film and
showing the viewers how the film was made.
2. Intervention Through Re-enactment: Robert Flaherty’s
Nanook Of The North
Re-enactment allows filmmakers to shoot an everyday situ-
ation several times, from different angles, and reconstruct
these
situations through editing as a compelling story. User
research in HCI also uses re-enactment, for instance in
artifact walkthroughs [35] or scenarios in video artifacts
[30]. Nonetheless, the techniques used in documentary film
to record re-enacted situations in a compelling way tend not
to be used in early phases of user research.
3. Compilation: Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911
“radical scavenging”, meaning “revisiting existing footage to
construct out of it an alternative and maybe even directly
oppositional narrative from that which it inherently pos-
sesses”.
4. Self-Performance: Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me
With self-performance people choose themselves what they
record, there is no script made by the filmmaker as there is
in re-enactment. Here the performer is also the director.”
[B. Raijmakers, W. Gaver, J. Bishay, p. 3, 2006]
4. Aim of documentaries
“The first is to construct a dialectic between the perspective
of the filmmaker and the rich reality of the situations and
people shown in the film. The second approach is to accom
modate the opposites, paradoxes and ambiguities that are
part of everyday life and to explore them rather then to
resolve them. Most importantly, by drawing on the rich tra-
dition of documentary filmmaking, they can avoid drawing
fixed conclusions, and thus open possibilities for exploration
later in the design process rather than closing them down.”
[B. Raijmakers, W. Gaver, J. Bishay, p. 9, 2006]
their context’
Design Documentaries: Inspiring design research
through documentary films

SECONDARY RESEARCH
ACM PAPERS
Tim Marsh, Michael Nitsche, Wei Liu, Peichi Chung, Jay
D. Bolter, Adrian D. Cheok - Film Informing Design for
Contemplative Gameplay
Reference:
Tim Marsh, Michael Nitsche, Wei Liu, Peichi Chung,
Jay D. Bolter, and Adrian D. Cheok. 2008. Film inform-
ing design for contemplative gameplay. In Proceedings
of the 2008 ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on Video
games (Sandbox ‘08). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 99-
106. DOI=10.1145/1401843.1401862 http://doi.acm.
org/10.1145/1401843.1401862
Reason for inclusion: To understand relationship between
films and HCI. I got this from ACM library.
Takeaway : I got an overview of how different film tech-
niques were used for game design. Also, understanding
about film viewer relationship helped me understand
designing experience for users better.
1.Hollywood filmmaking technique
Marsh [2002; 2003a] borrowed ideas from the “continu-
ity style” of the Hollywood filmmaking process to inform
media content design and analysis. When a Hollywood film
exhibits continuity, the filmic devices or conventions are less
apparent, and become transparent or invisible to the specta-
tor. Hence, the Hollywood or continuity style of filmmaking
is also referred to as “invisible style”. [T. Marsh et al., p. 1,
2008]
2. Film and viewer relationship
French writer Georges Duhamel [1930] disparagingly
described film as a pastime for “helots” who “seek solace in
a type of entertainment requiring absolutely no effort”. His
remarks derive from the dynamics of moving images that
he described as: “Too much noise. Too much movement!”
requiring film spectators little chance for contemplation be-
yond the experience that is “predetermined”. Consequently,
he described the mental state of the spectator as “anaes
thetised,” “gorged,” “paralysed,” and “hypnotic”. In contrast
“true” Art for Duhamel [1930] was “something conquered
by the mind with an effort” causing what Berge [1999] de-
scribes as “a superior and active intellectual contemplation”.
[T. Marsh et al., p. 2, 2008]
3. Different filmmaking technique
Filmmaking techniques that were discussed were of Russian,
Japanese, Chinese and french.
4. Relation between film experience and HCI
Relating these discussions to the work of this article, an
important question is: how much should users be made to
think or contemplate? At one extreme, advocating ideas of
transparency from HCI (i.e. not referring to games), Krug
and Black [2000] argue that users should not be made to
think, or to think “needlessly” about how to operate an
interface so as not to impede the flow of interaction. On the
other hand, if interaction involves an element of reflection or
contemplation brought about through interruption, surprise,
or rousing the user/player, then designers have the potential
to actively engage the user/player in, for example, domain
knowledge and in
formation, and/or the unfolding narrative/story, to provide
meaning, experience and opportunities for learning.
[T. Marsh et al., p. 3, 2008]
their context’
Film informing design for contemplative gameplay

SECONDARY RESEARCH
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Mark A. Blythe, Peter C. Wright- Pastiche scnearios: fic-
tion as a resource for user centered design
Reference:
Mark A. Blythe and Peter C. Wright. 2006. Pastiche
scenarios: Fiction as a resource for user centred design.
Interact. Comput. 18, 5 (September 2006), 1139-1164.
DOI=10.1016/j.intcom.2006.02.001 http://dx.doi.
org/10.1016/j.intcom.2006.02.001
Reason for inclusion: I got this paper as a reference from
ACM library while doing research on ‘Pastiche scenarios’
Takeaway : My key concept ‘Film pastiche’ were mainly
influenced and derived from this papers.
1. Source of Pastiche
“Pastiche scenarios borrow from the novel and other rich
forms in order to produce texts which can focus in on the
minutiae of human experience as well as take broader views
of general trends and structures. Generating pastiche can be
as simple as cutting and pasting lines of source text and then
modifying the story line to allow for the introduction of the
technology in question.” [M. Blythe, P. Wright, p. 23, 2006]
2. Usage of Pastiche
1. the pastiche scenarios are used to explore ‘felt-life’ issues.
2. Pastiche scenarios are particularly valuable in participa-
tory design situations, since they engage users in the way
that characters in novels might.
3. pastiche scenarios can be used to explore social and cul-
tural issues with imagined technology.
3. Pastiche in design
“The use of pastiche then, rather than the assembly of
demographic characteristics like age, occupation and so on,
introduces chance elements associated with individuality,
much like ethnographic research with real people. It is not
representative, nor scientific. Nevertheless, we will argue
throughout this paper that it can be a useful evaluation,
development and envisioning tool.” [M. Blythe, P. Wright, p.
7, 2006]
4. Pastiche as rhetoric
“Pastiche scenarios can be used as rhetorical devices for
design—to convince and persuade and to make apparent as-
sumptions and values around the design and use of technol-
ogy. They can also be used to explore emotional, social and
political contexts of use.” [M. Blythe, P. Wright, p. , 2006]
5. Advantages of Pastiche scenarios over Ethnography
“Criminals are an obvious illustration of a group that would
be unlikely to reveal in interview or observation their work-
ing practices and future plans.” [M. Blythe, P. Wright, p. 20
, 2006]
“HCI is concerned with the home as a design space it can be
difficult to conduct research which is not intrusive of partici-
pants privacy.” [M. Blythe, P. Wright, p. 20, 2006]
6. Difference between Pastiche scenarios and Persona
“Personae are often based on interviews with several us-
ers that are used to create synthesised characters. When
a personae based approach is used there is an attempt to
consider the user as a specific individual but such personae
often remain unconvincing because they are composites.”
[M. Blythe, P. Wright, p. 3, 2006]
“Scenario and persona-based design are good examples.
What these approaches have in common is an orienta-
tion towards narrative and shifting perspectives. But these
representations can lack the depth required for a ‘felt-life’ ap-
proach. Pastiche scenarios aim to overcome these limitations
and at the same time bring more of a cultural perspective by
drawing on already known literary characters and works.”
[M. Blythe, P. Wright, p. 20, 2006]
their context’
Pastiche Scenarios: Fiction as a resource for user
centered design

SECONDARY RESEARCH
LITERATURE REVIEW
Technology as experience - John McCarthy, Peter Wright
Reference:
McCarthy, John, and Peter Wright. “Making Sense of
Experience.” In Technology as Experience. London: The
MIT Press, 2004.
Reason for inclusion: I used this book for reading in my
Experience design course that I took in spring 2013.
I have referenced chapter 5. Making Sense of Experience
in order to understand the notion of ‘lived experience’
Takeaway : The section of ‘six processes of sense mak-
ing’, helped me understand the film watching experience
in better way. The process of ‘Recoutning an experience’
particuarly resonated with me.
1. Lived experience
“The personal meaning of an experience depends significant-
ly on the sense we make of it given our particular history
and disposition.” [McCarthy, Wright, p. 118, 2004]
“People seem to have a strong need to express and make
sense of their experience, do it in many different ways, and
never finish it off.” [McCarthy, Wright, p. 118, 2004]
2. Recounting for making sense of experience
“Recounting is fundamentally dialogical, involving telling
the experience to others or ourselves. Like reflecting and
appropriating, it takes us beyond the immediate experience
to consider it in the context of other experiences. Recounting
gives us the opportunity to savor the experience again, to
find new possibilities and new meanings in it and this often
leads us to want to repeat the experience.”
“As a dialogical process of making meaning, recounting
facilitates our accommodation to the valuative responses of
others. As we tell the experience, it can change depending on
the moment-to-moment response of the other.” [McCarthy,
Wright, p. 140, 2004]
3. The temporality of living and reliving experience
“As we engage with both our expectations from past experi-
ences and our expectations of future experiences, the gap
between expectation and experience emerges in a feeling of,
for example, dissatisfaction or pleasant surprise.” [McCar-
thy, Wright, p. 135, 2004]
4. Narratives of experience
“Narratives of experience deserve particular attention be-
cause of the pivotal role they play not only in which we make
sense of our experience but also for the way in which they
can shape our felt, lived experience.
Narrative also permeates the experience as it is lived and
dominates the process of making experience meaningful for
ourselves afterwards.”
“Experience structures expressions in that we understand
other people and their expressions on the basis of our own
experience and self-understanding.”
“Narratives of experience are selective interpretations, con-
structed for a purpose and an audience. We decide where to
start and end, what to emphasize and how to frame it and
in doing do we often feel the gap between experience and
telling. Nonetheless, these stories are self-referential.” [Mc-
Carthy, Wright, p. 119, 2004]
“An important point about recounting experience is that
the telling of the experience seems to fold itself back into the
lived experience. As we live through experiences, we already
have a sense of the social context in which we will recount
and make sense of those experiences.” [McCarthy, Wright, p.
133, 2004]
Technology as Experience
of ‘felt-life’

SECONDARY RESEARCH
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Bridget Jones’ iPod - Mark Blythe and Peter Wright
Reference:
Blythe, Mark, Wright, Peter. (2013) ‘Bridget Jones’ iPod:
Relating Macro and Micro Theories of User Experience
Through Pastiche Scenarios’, the encyclopaedia of informal
education, www.infed.org/thinkers/eisner.htm.
Reason for inclusion: I wanted to refer to an example to
Pastiche scenario so that I can analyze and understand it
better. I got such example in this paper.
Takeaway : I got to learn a pastiche example borrowed
from ‘Bridget Jone’s diary’ novel. Also, I understood
how culture plays an important role in the experience of
people.
1. Example Pastiche scenario narrative
“The following scenario pastiches Bridget Jones’ diary:
Gah! Almost missed train. Got on in nick of time but had no
choice of seat. Just one left next to quite nice looking bloke
but opposite nasty looking youth in baseball cap. Said youth
plugged in v. loud headphones almost immediately so had no
choice but to play nice new iPod. Took this out below table
with some care. Wanted nice chap to see it (advertise self as
successful young professional) but not youth in cap (must
not see self as very much worth mugging.)
The identification with the iPod (self as glamorous young
professional) is counterpointed by her fear that it makes her
a target for crime (mugging by said youth). This anxiety can
be thought of as one of the problems of what Reed calls “los-
able” technology as a counterpoint to thecurrent term “wear-
able” (Reed submitted). The iPod has important symbolic
functions then which are multiple and mutable.
The use of pastiche prevents the scenario from becoming one
of an ideal use situation, Bridget’s hapless and disorganised
character suggesting that she would not have charged her
Artefact
iPod.” [Blythe, Wright, p. 4, 2013]
2. Individual and culture
“Wright and McCarthy argue that individual and cultural
should be seen not as alternative perspectives on experience but
rather as deeply inter-penetrating aspects of a more relational
account of how we make sense of technology. They argue that
the experience of technology is co-constructed by the designer,
the user and the artefact with the user bringing values and
meanings based on their own personal history and experience.
Their relational or ‘dialogical’ approach suggests that our ana-
lytical methods should not force us to talk in terms of culture or
individual experience but rather in terms of the individual-in-
culture.”[Blythe, Wright, p. 2, 2013]
Film Pastiche
3. Fiction world and experience
“Lene Nielsen has argued that users in scenarios are often
mere functionaries that illustrate the workings of the prod-
uct being described. She suggests drawing on traditions of
European character driven film to generate more vivid and
compelling characterizations.
Wright and McCarthy (2004) have argued that the novel
and in particular, the character-based novel is potentially a
valuable tool for analyzing user experience since it provides
a lens on the emotional-volitional nature of human agency.”
[Blythe, Wright, p. 4, 2013]
Bridget Jones’ iPod Pastiche
of ‘felt-life’
Values, meanings
Individual in culture

RESEARCH SYNTHESIS
1. HOW FILMS IS RELATED TO HCI ?

HCI has entered in its ‘third-wave’ and is exploring issues like
gender, identity, human experience, aesthetics, which it hasn’t dealt
before. In order to evaluate these aspects, it needs to explore other
disciplines like films. In the paper ‘Interaction criticism: An intro-
duction to the practice’, Jeffery Bardzell talks about the benefits of
engagement with other fields
“Benefits of such an engagement can include informing a particular
design process, critiquing and innovating on design processes and
methods more generally, developing original theory beneficial to
interaction design, and exposing more robustly the long-term and
even unintended consequences of designs.” [Bardzell, p. 1, 2006]
There are different ways in which films can be associated with
HCI(Human Computer Interaction) discipline. Throughout my
research, I have tried exploring various aspects of linking these two
fields together. I have enlisted my findings here:
1. Commonalities between process
There is some commonality between film making process and
design process. HCI can borrow few techniques of creativity from
films. One such technique is called ‘Method Acting’ which is used
by the actors to understand their characters from films. Designers
can adopt this technique to get inspired by user personas. There is
another technique called ‘Hero’s Journey’ which is often used in the
scripts of Hollywood films that can be used as a structure for story
telling by designers.
2. Understanding the experience
Understanding the experience of watching films can be used to
understand the ‘experience’ itself. In the book ‘Technology as Expe-
rience’, McCarthy & Wright have said,
“there is now more than ever, a need for clarification on what we
mean when we talk about experience.”[McCarthy & Wright,2004]
Understanding the experience
Films HCI
Relation of film with Human Computer
Interaction design field
3. Criticism
By observing and analyzing films, designers could get a better understanding of the people and their
context. Films can be used as a rhetoric tool to explore human issues of longing, hope, desirability, identity,
gender, etc. for design.
For my capstone, I will be mainly focusing on the second and third part.
commonalities between process
criticism

RESEARCH SYNTHESIS
2. HOW CAN FILM CRITICISM CONTRIBUTE TO THE HCI FIELD ?

Watching a film is ‘an experience’. It has a beginning and an end. It
is consists of elements like - script, background score, location setting,
costumes, actors, camera angle, dialogues, cinematography, theatre
ambience that adds to the overall experience of watching a film.
This ‘felt life’ is what makes a film enriching and engaging. Leverag-
ing this notion, HCI field could use the medium of films for three
reasons:
1. Tool for exploration:
Films is an enriching source of media. There is a lot of information
that is communicated directly through the medium (like the main
theme of the story) while some is communicated indirectly (like the
local culture). It can be a medium for exploring different people, their
emotions, behavior, etc. In the paper ‘Design Documentaries: Inspir-
ing Design Research Through Documentary Film’, Bas Raijmak-
ers, William W. Gaver and Jon Bishay talk about films as a tool for
exploration.
“We suggest that, for design research in HCI, film can be much more
than a note-taking tool; we can use it as a means to explore, under-
stand and present the everyday, and benefit from film’s capabilities
to preserve ambiguities and paradoxes instead of resolving them into
univocal conclusions.” [Raijmakers, Gaver, Bishay, p. 1, 2006]
2. Develop dialectic
Along with a medium of exploration, films can be used to develop
dialectic. They compel us to read physical objects thereby developing
our visual literacy. Analyzing elements in the frame of a film scene
help us develop dialectic. I came across the following quote in one of
the interviews with designers:
“When a directors sets up a shot for a film, nothing from that shot
happens by accident. Somebody is there looking at every detail.”
Films
‘Felt-Life’
3. Understand the context
From the interviews I conducted with designers, one key insight I got was that disseminating culture spe-
cific information through the medium of films is easier. Few films are able to portray the context in a realis-
tic way. Though they don’t represent a culture, they can give a directions for research regarding a culture by
becoming a rhetorical tool.
Tool for
exploration
Develop
dialectic
Understand
the context

RESEARCH SYNTHESIS
3. THE ‘LIVED EXPERIENCE’ OF A FILM

Few films have an ability to make a deeper impact on some people.
These films have a stronger influence in their lives.One of the designer
in the interview mentioned,
“Interest began in the films when I really started paying attention to
what they had to say. There was a film called ‘Boogie nights’ which was
about pornographic film industry but it was also about this family
dynamics of the people who were in this business and that really struck
me I never thought of something like that.”
While watching a film, people go through a unique experience of
sense making. Adapting six processes of sense making from the book
“Technology as Experience” by McCarty and Wright, following is my
account of the experience film viewers have while watching a film.
1. Anticipation:
Film viewers anticipate/ expect the film narrative based on the title.
2. Connection:
They resonate with one of the characters and establish connection
either beforehand or while watching the film.
3. Interpretation:
They interpret what is likely to happen in the next scene while watch-
ing it.
4. Reflection:
While interpreting, they simultaneously reflect on their judgments
about the experience as the story unfolds.
5. Appropriation:
They relate some of these experience with the one they already had in
their real lives.
6. Recount:
After watching a film, viewers talk to others and share their opinions.
Recounting gives them an opportunity to savor the film experience
and find new possibilities or meanings in it.
Unique
experience
Film scene
(Actors, setting)
‘Felt-life’ of a film
This process of sense making is unique to every individual and highly depends on the background.
Understanding and analyzing this ‘felt-life’ is important for designers for crafting experiences for
people. McCarthy and Wright refer to the ‘felt-life’ of people’s experiences with technology in their
book ‘Technology as experience’ and argue:
“We do not just use technology, we live with it, it is a part of our ‘ felt-life’ and can create magical
moments that would not be possible without it.” [McCarthy and Wright, 2004]
One of the ways to leverage the ‘felt-life’ experience of watching a film is by implementing a design
innovation method called ‘Pastiche scenarios’ that gets inspired from the fiction world to explore
interior aspects of user experience.
Film viewers

INSIGHTS
1. FILM AS A TOOL FOR EXPLORATION

In the paper ‘Design Documentaries: Inspiring Design Research
Through Documentary Film’, Bas Raijmakers, William W. Gaver and
Jon Bishay talk about films as a tool for exploration:
“We suggest that, for design research in HCI, film can be much more
than a note-taking tool; we can use it as a means to explore, under-
stand and present the everyday, and benefit from film’s capabilities
to preserve ambiguities and paradoxes instead of resolving them into
univocal conclusions.” [Raijmakers, Gaver, Bishay, p. 1, 2006]
Ever since HCI has entered its third wave, the issues of gender,
identity, human experience, aesthetics, human emotions, etc. has
become the crux of the design. Other mature phenomena such as
film critique, film theory have been addressing these issues since a
long time. Thus, HCI can understand from films to learn about these
issues more deeply.
Films bring us sensitivities by educating our perception. In the
paper ‘Interaction criticism: An introduction to the practice’, Jeffery
Bardzell refers to Richard Rorty’s work to explain the significance of
sensitivity not only among designers but people in general.
“American philosopher Richard Rorty argues that the enhanced sen-
sitivity that results from wide reading makes people more imaginative
about and empathic toward others’ suffering. This enhanced empathy
toward suffering encourages social solidarity and a more just society
(Rorty, 1989).”
Enhanced sensitivities makes designers more imaginative and cre-
ative and therefore, it is an important quality for every designer to
pursue.
Thus, films can be a tool for exploration. They would not only to help
us address the new issues of gender and identity but also enhance our
sensitivities towards them.
Designer Film scene
(Actors, setting)
Actual people
and location
Film as a tool for exploration

INSIGHTS
2. FILMS TO DEVELOP DIALECTIC

Dialectic, in lay man’s term, means ‘the art of investigating or
discussing the truth of opinions’ or ‘the inquiry into metaphysical
contradictions and their solutions’. (Google search results)
In the paper ‘Design Documentaries: Inspiring Design Research
Through Documentary Film’; Bas Raijmakers, William W. Gaver and
Jon Bishay talk about designers having to develop dialectic between
design perspectives after user research.
“Design teams may thoroughly research the people and situations for
which they are designing, but they must also develop a perspective—a
prioritized view—to direct their work. An important role for design
research in HCI is to facilitate the emergence of the dialectic between
user research and design perspectives.” [Raijmakers, Gaver, Bishay;
2006]
This development of dialectic will not only help designers explore
different perspectives but will also help them in taking an optimum
stand for the design. It will help them bridge the gap between user
research and insights for the design more effectively.
Films, because of their narrative structure, embrace this dialectic.
Their rich visuals compel us to read physical objects and interpret
them while watching it. Analyzing and understanding elements on
the screen can help us realize bigger issues and develop dialectic.
Designer Film scene
(Actors, setting)
Actual people
and location
Film to develop dialectic

INSIGHTS
3. FILMS TO UNDERSTAND THE CONTEXT

While interviewing the designers, one key insight I got was that
disseminating culture specific information through the medium of
films is easier. One of the interviewee said,
“It makes more sense to see something in the context of culture while
watching a film that would not have made sense otherwise. Eg: Café
having cigarette shops in the French film Amelie.”
Thus, films have an ability to capture the context in a way that makes
sense to the viewers. They have an ability to communicate some
cultural aspect effectively.
Ever since the introduction of ‘third wave’, cultural accommodation
by technology, especially in HCI’s agenda of Ubiquitous computing,
has become very important. It has become necessary to understand
and empathize with the people in their context to design for them.
Jeffery Bardzell writes about cultural HCI in his paper ‘Critical and
Cultural Approaches to HCI’,
“Cultural approaches should be used to help HCI improve our lived
environment and improve ourselves.”[Bardzell, p. 21, 2006]
Thus, in order to improve an environment, designers need to under-
stand the culture and context of people at first place and the medium
of ‘films’ can be a starting point towards that step.
Designer Film scene
(Actors, setting)
Actual people
and location
Film to understand the context

INSIGHTS
4. DESIGN COULD LEVERAGE THE ‘LIVED EXPERIENCE’ OF FICTION WORLD TO INTER-
ROGATE INTERACTIONS IN MUCH RICHER WAYS

Mark A. Blythe and Peter C. Wright in the paper ‘Pastiche Scenarios:
Fiction as a resource for user centered design’ proposed pastiche
scenarios as a method to interrogate ‘felt-life’ of interactions in richer
ways.
In the same paper, they talk about the source of Pastiche scenarios:
“Pastiche scenarios borrow from the novel and other rich forms in
order to produce texts which can focus in on the minutiae of human
experience as well as take broader views of general trends and struc-
tures.” [Blythe, Wright, p. 23, 2006]
These scenarios consists of the modified lines from a source text that
allows for the introduction of the technology in question.
It can be used for three reasons:
1. To explore ‘felt-life’ issues.
2. Valuable in participatory design situations, since they engage users
in the way that characters in novels might.
3. To explore social and cultural issues with imagined technology.
For my concept, I have taken inspiration from the fiction world of
films and generated scenarios. They are called film pastiche and are
used to explore and interrogate sensual, emotional, social and cul-
tural aspects of people’s relationships with technology .
Pastiche scenarios
Design
Fictional world

CONCEPT
FILM PASTICHE

What
Drawing an inspiration from Blythe and Wright’s ‘Pastiche Sce-
narios’ that borrows scenarios from the rich form of fiction world
mainly novels, I borrowed them from Indian films in my capstone.
Film pastiche are the scenarios inspired from a film scene. They seek
to explore and interrogate sensual, emotional, social and cultural
aspects of people’s relationships with technology .
Why
Film pastiches are used to explore the social and cultural issues of
using a technology. They are similar to the process of defamiliariza-
tion and compel designers to think about opportunities of domestic
designs from different perspective.
These scenarios can be used by designers during ‘problem framing’
or ‘design iteration’ phase of the design process. The film characters
engage designers to brainstorm on a hypothetical scenario of using a
technology. As Mark Blythe and Peter Wright once mentioned,
“It is possible for designers to shape how technology is used but not to
determine it.” [Blythe, Wright, p. 17, 2006]
Thus, film pastiche can be used by designers to explore and open up
to different perspectives, accommodate different culture and empa-
thize with people in their context. This enhanced sensitivity will
make them more imaginative with their designs.
How
Pastiche scenarios, as described in the journal article, were generated
by cutting and pasting the lines from novel and then modifying the
storyline to allow for the introduction of the technology in question.
For film pastiche, I decided to use my collection of the film instances
on cards (adapted from Interaction criticism framework) and modi-
fied their structure to introduce the need for design.
Design
Film scenario
Film pastiche
‘felt-life’
Designers Designers Designers

CONCEPT
SAMPLE CARDS

These are the two sample cards that I made as a part of my collec-
tion of film instances. On the front side of the card, there is a film
name, film genre, film still or an image, plot of the film, scene de-
scription and camera techniques. On the back side of the card, there
is a section for character background and value this card brings to
design. (For more details, refer pg - 22).
LUNCHBOX (2014)
Background
Modes of communication
Ila ,a married woman, wants to seek her hus-
band’s attention through food. She cooks daily
meal to send it to her husband in a lunch box.
She soon discovers that lunch box is getting de-
livered to wrong address. She writes to find out
who the person is at the other end and sends it
via lunchbox and gets reply via empty lunch box
Scene: Saajan (protagonist) happily opens his
lunch box but finds a letter beneath chapati (In-
dian bread). He is opening the letter to read it.
Value for design
Observing how people try different modes of
communication can inspire designers for de-
signing innovative systems. Understanding what
significance it has in a culture, which activity is
associated with it, will help them in defining the
context for design. Also, the issue of accessibil-
ity and privacy could be observed more closely
HIGHWAY (2014)
Drama film
Plot:The film outlines a story of a young woman
who is kidnapped before her wedding but she
develops affection towards her kidnapper
Background
Adapting to different stratum of society
Veera is a young rich girl who gets kidnapped
as a hostage by criminal gang. Over a period of
time, she adapts to the kidnaper’s lifestyle and
develops stockholm syndrome (positive feel-
ings) towards her captor. She starts to enjoy her
freedom and refuses to go back. She is shown
to be a victim of childhhod sexual abuse.
Scene: Veera (protagonist) is slowly enjoying
her new found freedom. She adapts to the sit-
ting posture of her kidnaper group friends.
Value for design
While framing a story or creating a persona,
designer should take into account the back-
ground. Victims of childhood sexual abuse lead
normal lives but are sensitive to few things
in life. Empathizing with them, learning more
about them but not treating them differently
from the rest people will result in better designs

CONCEPT
CONCEPT 1 - ELECTRONIC CARDS
The first concept is to make an electronic version of the card so that it
is easy for designers to access film scenes online.
CONTEXT OF USE:
This concept could be used in a scenario where designers have access
to their personal computers or other electronic devices to see the
cards. These cards will be auto-played on the screen so that designer
knows which one to use for his design.
ADVANTAGES OF USING ELECTRONIC CARDS:
• Less maintainance
• Easy to access the actual film
DIS-ADVANTAGES OF USING ELECTRONIC CARDS:
• Constrained to digital medium
• May be difficult to share and discuss cards with other designers.
Electronic
Cards
Designer using electronic card

CONCEPT
CONCEPT 2 - PHYSICAL CARDS
The second concept is to have an actual physical card. It could be
used by designers while brainstorming or iterating their designs.
CONTEXT OF USE:
The concept could be used in a scenario where designers prefer infor-
mation on physical medium over digital medium. There is no really
difference between using mechanism of these cards between first
concept and second concept except for the change in medium.
ADVANTAGES OF USING PHYSICAL CARDS:
• Easier to pick the cards
• Information synthesis is different than digital medium
DIS-ADVANTAGES OF USING PHYSICAL CARDS:
• Prone to damage or tear
• Cards could get lost
HCI/d
HCI/d
Designers using physical cards

CONCEPT
CONCEPT 3 - POSTER
The third and final concept is that of a poster where all the cards are
laid out in a way that designer can have a look at them all at once and
decide which ones to use.
CONTEXT OF USE:
The concept could be used in a scenario where designers prefer see-
ing all the cards at once. It is a different way to synthesis information.
ADVANTAGES OF USING A POSTER:
• Easier to pick the cards
• Information synthesis is different than digital and physical
medium
DIS-ADVANTAGES OF USING A POSTER:
• Prone to damage or tear
• Poster not handy
HCI/d
HCI/d
Designer using cards on the poster
50 instances of Indian films

CONCEPT SCENARIO
1. PROBLEM FRAMING

Film pastiche can be used by designers during problem framing
phase of the design. It is during this phase when designers try to
approach a given space from different perspectives. Film Pastiche can
be used as a rhetorical tool to understand people and their context
and explore social and cultural issues of using a technology.
The scenario , as seen to the right, is when designers use Film pas-
tiche cards during the problem framing phase of their design. While
learning about their target user group, they realize bigger questions
of ‘desirability’ and ‘purpose of the design’.
Problem Framing phase
Film pastiche
Designers
Using Film Pastiche for problem framing
W
hat do people
really desire from
using technology ?

CONCEPT SCENARIO
2. DESIGN ITERATION

Pastiche scenarios can be used by designers while iterating on
designs. Film pastiches can be used for brainstorming on a hypo-
thetical scenario from a film where character’s use the technology.
The narration could help designers innovate and understand their
designs better.
The concept scenario to the right portrays designers using the Film
pastiche cards to evaluate their designs in a hypothetical scenario
of the film. Thus, by imagining their technology in the given film
narrative, designers realize they need to further investigate on some
questions for their design. For my prototype, I am focusing on using
film pastiche during the ‘Design iteration’ phase.
Design iteration phase
Film pastiche
Designers
Using Film Pastiche during design iteration
We should
address this
social issue that
users may face
while using the
technology

PROTOTYPE
FIRST ITERATION
The card to the right is one of the sample cards from my collection
of film instances. The purpose of these cards was to be reflective.
Therefore, I gave my account of the value a film instance brings to the
design. These cards were meant for the designers to simply refer dur-
ing design process. (Please refer pg. 22).
As I realized the importance to evaluate these cards, I sought feedback
from a designer (first year master student of Human Computer Inter-
action design program) to observe how the information is processed.
One key insight I got from the observation was that with the ‘Value for
design’ column, I was being prescriptive on how a film instance should
be interpreted. So, I iterated the design of the card.
LUNCHBOX (2014)
Background
Modes of transportation
Ila is a homemaker who stays along with her
husband and a daughter. She wants to seek her
husband’s attention to rekindle their love and
tries new dishes to make him happy. Her neigh-
boring aunt helps her by sending ingredients via
an open basket tied to a rope from one end of a
kitchen to another through window.
Scene: Ila (protagonist) is preparing luchbox for
her husband. The neighbouring aunty is helping
her with spices by sending them in open basket
Value for design
Observing how people appropriate different
modes of transportation and collaboration can
help designers identify design opportunities.
Retaining the value of cultural artifact and
getting inspired from its usage can add more
meaning to the design. Like adapting modern
communication methods to an older one.
First card design

PROTOTYPE
SECOND ITERATION
For my next version, I removed ‘value for design’ column, scene de-
scription, camera techniques and only focussed on the context of film
scene and character description to make it a simple card design. For
displaying the context, I included multiple close shot images of the
film scene and a wide image on the top.
I sought feedback from a designer (second year master student of
Human Computer Interaction design program) and observed how
the information was processed. The images on one side of the card
confused the designer. Visuals were overwhelming and the designer
expected some guidelines on how to look at them. So, I further iter-
ated on the card design.
Second card design
Time: 03:52 to 04:50
Plot
Ila (the protagonist) is a homemaker who
stays along with her husband and a daughter.
She wants to seek her husband’s attention to
rekindle their love and tries new dishes to make
him happy. Her neighboring aunt helps her by
sending ingredients via an open basket tied to
a rope from one end of a kitchen to another
through window.
LUNCHBOX (2014)
Preparation of a lunch box in a kitchen

PROTOTYPE
THIRD ITERATION
For the third iteration of card, I tried arranging images in a flow by
following the narrative and giving a brief description of the scene. I
also elaborated on the character description for a designer to under-
stand the persona and included ‘Activity’ section as a guideline to
suggest users how the card should be used.
I sought feedback for the last time from designers (master students of
Human Computer Interaction design program at Indiana University)
and observed their interpretation of this card. They felt some scenes
were out of flow and dialogues of the character would have helped
them understand the context better. Also, the size of the images were
too small for them to comprehend. So, I decided to do the final itera-
tion of the design.
Third card design
Preparing a lunchbox
Ila checks the rice cooker
Adds it to the curry
Prepares lunch box for
her husband
Hears a doorbell
LUNCHBOX (2013)
Character description
Ila is a middle aged homemaker who
stays along with her husband and a
daughter in Mumbai suburbs. It’s a
middle class family where husband has
a 9 am-5 pm job and daughter goes to
school every day. Ila wants to seek her
husband’s attention to rekindle their
love and tries new recipes to make him
happy. Her neighboring aunty helps
her by sending cooking ingredients
via an open basket tied to a rope from
her kitchen to aunty’s kitchen through
window.
She tastes the curry
Takes spices sent by aunty
through window
Scene time: 1: 40 to 3.05
Activity
1. Complete the story ...
2. How would you help Ila in your story
through technology ?
3. List down the questions and your
assumptions of this design.
1 2
3 4
5 6

PROTOTYPE
FINAL ITERATION
For the fourth iteration of the card design, I increased the space
and size of the card and included the genre of the film, timestamp,
character description, camera techniques, scene details and an activity
suggesting how to use on one side of the card.
On the other side I included the scene descriptions, dialogues of the
character and bigger images of the film instance.
Final card design (front)
LUNCHBOX (2013)
Character description
Ila is a middle aged homemaker who stays along with
her husband and a daughter in Mumbai suburbs. It’s
a middle class family where husband has a 9 am-5
pm job and daughter goes to school every day. Ila
wants to seek her husband’s attention to rekindle
their love and tries new recipes to make him happy.
Her neighboring aunty helps her by sending cooking
ingredients via an open basket tied to a rope from
her kitchen to aunty’s kitchen through window.
Scene time: 1: 40 to 3.05
Activity
1. Complete the story ...
2. How would you help Ila in your story through technology ?
3. List down the questions and your assumptions of this design.
Ila
Camera Techniques
Position: close up
Movement: pan
Focus: Deep
Scene details
No. of characters in the frame: One
Props: Rice cooker, gas stove, spices, lunch box
Setting: Kitchen

PROTOTYPE
FINAL ITERATION
Preparing a lunchbox scenario
Fourth card design (Back)
Preparing a lunchbox
Ila checks the rice cooker to see if the
curry is ready
She tastes the curry but doesnt like it Gets more spices from her kitchen shelve
Aunty (Not in the frame): Did you put all the spices ?
Ila: No Aunty, I think I forgot something...
Ila takes spicies sent by Aunty through window
Aunty: I knew this from the first whistle! Take this..
Ila: Thank you Aunty !
Puts the spices in her curry
Aunty: No no, not a tea spoon, just a little
Ila: ok..
Aunty: You will see, this receipe will work wonders for you
Ila prepares the lunchbox for her husband and
hears a door bell
1 3
5
2
4 6

CONTEXT OF USE
Hmmm... Yes, it does
fail here.. we need to
more research of the
target user group..
The design won’t work
in this scenario ...
What do you think ?
CONCEPTS PROTOTYPE DESIGN ITERATION
DESIGN ITERATION DESIGN ITERATION FINAL DESIGN
1. Designers brainstorming on the concepts 2. Designers prototyping their design 3. Designers evaluating their prototype
4. Designers using film pastiche while iterating on their
prototype
5. Designers innovating their design 6. Designers with their final design

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