In this chapter I propose that for interactive documentary to progress it needs to adopt design methodologies that help utilise the affordances of the network, in a similar manner to other successful online media. To do this, interactive documentary must find ways to integrate design practices into media making. Many online media platforms have taken advantage of the affordances of the network to connect information, media, and people into a web of relations, and these platforms have relied upon design practices to inform their development as social media tools and services. Design in this context can be considered as a process that responds to problems that arise through change, and this is why design has become a key feature of many of the practices associated with the fast-paced development of the Internet. For interactive documentary to adapt to the constant transformations occurring in online media it is designâs ability to negotiate change in the context of applied outcomes that provides important methods for interactive documentary.
Documentary Design
Design methodologies as an integral aspect of interactive documentary practice is not an entirely new concept. Theorists like OâFlynn (
2012), and Dovey and Rose (
2012), have written of documentary design. OâFlynn, for example, evaluates the emergence of different forms of interactive documentary across multiple platforms and connects these developments with the incorporation of design methods into documentary practice. OâFlynn proposes that:
notions of interactivity have changed over the past decade ⌠[due to] a shift away from a binaristic âchoose your own adventureâ orientation towards plot as an either/or structure and narrative causality to an exploration of experiential interface design. Here, i-docs of the last five years have demonstrated an increasing attention to interface and user experience design as dynamic structural elements expressive of a thematic core to the given narrative. (2012, 156)
In joining OâFlynn, my focus is on design as a key component of interactive documentary practice. This also involves the use of a practice-led methodology in my research to find out what it is to enact design methodologies in an interactive documentary practice.
The Documentary Designer
Documentary practice is transformed in the multilinear architecture of the Internet, requiring a reconceptualisation of the term âdocumentary maker.â A practitioner who makes interactive documentary on the Internet is now more accurately described as a âdocumentary designer.â In support of this role, I am proposing a list of terms or concepts that a documentary designer is required to understand.
This notion of a documentary designer emerges from my position as a practitioner and the projects, tools, and approaches to interactive documentary practice tested through academic and industry research. I have produced artefacts that offer propositions about documentary design, and what it means to be a documentary designer. This practice-led approach has opened up possibilities for me to rethink interactive documentary through the concept of documentary design as a new mode of practice that future makers will be required to understand.
I define the role of a documentary designer, and the practices they enact, through the broad categories of interactive media, affordance, web of relations, and design methodology. I introduce what these categories are, and then use these categories, combined with the notion of dexterity, to list the key propositions that underwrite what I believe a documentary designer needs to know and do.
Categories
Interactive Media
Interactive documentaries are situated within interactive digital media more broadly, and interactivity is a distinguishing feature of these forms. Gaudenzi (2013) argues that in an interactive documentary the audience must be able to tangibly make something happen in or to the work, while Ryan (2004) suggests that interactivity involves more than just publishing media online. As an example Ryan proposes that the online publication of a movie, as it was produced for cinema, does not alter in any way how the work is presented to the audience. Interactivity changes mediaâs âability to tell stories, and the stories it can tellâ (Ryan 2004, 338), and if a cinematic or televisual documentary published on the Internet is not yet interactive we can see that an interactive documentary requires its topic to be presented in a different way. For example, the documentary Planet Galata (2010) was produced for television and as an interactive documentary. In the interactive version, made using Thalhoferâs Korsakow software, video is fragmented into independent granules that can be viewed in varying orders. In their own description of their television version, Bas and Thalhofer claim that it âis exactly the same every time you look at it. Every scene is glued to each other once and forever.â However, in their interactive documentary the topic is presented differently to the television version because of its varying pathways and ordering. Thalhofer proposes that because a Korsakow film creates multiple pathways it is a more fluid experience for the user (Crossover Labs 2015).
Affordances
In the Design of Everyday Things Norman defines affordance as the âperceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine how the thing could possibly be usedâ (1998, 9). Each individual medium in an interactive documentary has particular affordances that need to be identified to inform interactive documentary practice online. What will matter to interactive documentary are the particularly affordances that arise from video, computers, and the network, and these affordances are granularity, remix, indexing, and spatial montage.
Granularity is an affordance of video and in interactive documentary it is how âgranulesâ of video are able to remain independent in computers and on the network. With shots or sequences separate there is the option to create multiple relations between them, which alters the way a work can be structured to convey meaning. With this granularity the computer then enables the affordances of remix, indexing, and spatial montage for interactive documentary. Remix refers to the computerâs ability to combine and recombine video, including the audienceâs ability to mix media on the computer including appropriating it for other purposes. Remix is an important consideration in interaction design as it forms an integral part of the user engaging with the work. Indexing refers to the use of metadata to allow for the access and retrieval of stored content on a computer. In an interactive documentary indexing is used to form relations between granules and create an overarching structure that ties the work together as a whole. Spatial montage describes the ability to have multiple windows open concurrently on a computer, as argued by Manovich (2001). In the design of the interface for an interactive documentary working with video both temporally and spatially is involved. Finally, network is defined as the infrastructure of computers that make up the World Wide Web, consisting of a series of protocols and servers that run on the Internet that facilitates the four affordances of granularity, remix, indexing, and spatial montage.
Web of Relations
The World Wide Web as a network has a multilinear structure that enables a web of relations to be created between multiple granules of video in an interactive documentary. These videos can be then remixed into different combinations. As a concept, âweb of relationsâ describes how associations are formed between this content in the multilinear structure provided by the World Wide Web. I use Bordwell and Thompsonâs (2010) definition of ânonnarrativeâ to describe the particular form of interactive documentary I am discussing. In regards to the form of a documentary in a linear structure Bordwell and Thompson focus on how relations are organised between shots in a ânarrativeâ and ânonnarrativeâ manner. In a narrative a linear structure is utilised to convey one situation leading to another as part of an ongoing âcause and effectâ framework. Bordwell and Thompson propose that to create relations between shots in a non-narrative film material is arranged using a taxonomy and that this provides a structured process of classification, in effect creating a linear web of relations. Following Bordwell and Thompson, documentary can be classified into four modes of linear narrative, linear non-narrative, multilinear narrative, and multilinear non-narrative. In the case of interactive documentary, it is multilinear non-narrative that best exemplifies the affordances and web of relations that I am discussing.
Design as Methodology
Design methodology refers to the designerly processes that need to be integrated into the production of an interactive documentary. It is these design methodologies that allow the documentary designer to negotiate the intersection of documentary and new media. Design thinking is often described as a process that involves reframing a problem to understand and define it (Buchanan 1992, Kimbell 2011). Designers are problem-orientated practitioners who integrate hands-on skills with conceptual ideas, thinking through their making to create solutions to problems.
Design thinking recognises that artefacts are propositions that are ideas. As Kimbell, discussing Buchananâs seminal 1992 âWicked Problems in Design Thinkingâ notes, design thinking âcould be applied to nearly anything, whether a tangible object or intangible system,â and that design is âwell-placed to serve the needs of a technological culture in which many kinds of things are designed, and human problems are complexâ (2011, 292). Kimbell goes on to suggest that âthe designer brings a unique way of looking at problems and finding solutionsâ (292). Design thinking methodologies are able to be used in an agile way to engage with the problems, and determine the strategies and practices required, to work in an environment that is undergoing rapid transformation such as we see with interactive documentary and the World Wide Web.
The Propositions
Using these categories of interactive media, affordance, web of relations, and design methodology I propose the following propositions for documentary design.
Taken together the following propositions provide a starting point that describes the documentary designer as an emerging role in the documentary project in relation to interactive documentary.
- 1.
The documentary designer designs and produces interactive media across a range of platforms in a variety of contexts.
Nash refers to the evolving and experimental development of documentary form, and recognises the for...
