first contact with the artifacts
Having collected the objects themselves, the first phase of the project consists in figuring out what they would “tell” us. Actually, we have to admit that we do not have specific assumptions, questions nor hypotheses, apart from the intuition that game pads have something to reveal about human-computer interaction and design.
We spent a whole afternoon observing the devices and noting different themes that emerged from the artifacts. We looked at individual objects and compared them to one another. This lead to the following list of topics that would find relevant to explore in the project:
- Game pad characteristics: we thought about creating a sort identity card for each game pad, according to different issues: buttons, shape, color, texture, chord, name, etc.
- Criteria to define a *good* game pad
- Comparison of fake game pad to real ones
- A timeline to describe the release of game controllers in conjunction with certain events (games, sci-fi books that would show the Zeitgeist, other console and electronic devices, etc.)
- The evolution of game controllers: there could be different representations: histogram with the number of button evolution, family trees, addition of new features, derivation (glove), resurgence (potentiometer), etc.
- Picture to reveal how these devices age: used parts, presence of patina.
- Close-up picture and analysis of game pad parts: buttons, d-pad
- Quotes from designers
- Quotes and pictures with users
- …
There should be more of course, but this was meant to describe a raw list of issues that would interest us after a first contact with the material. The next step will be to find a more rigorous way to analyze the object. For that matter, we intend to use Latour-ian/Becker framework based on description.
