GOSSIPING FOR ENJOYMENT IN THE INTERFACE -- PROJECT WEEK (★ω★)/

The Process~

The first day of the Living in the Interface course, the class compiled websites that we visited every week or even as often as every day. This exercise prompted me to look at the way I interact with these websites (such as what attracted my eye and attention first, what buttons I rarely clicked, if I scrolled or clicked through the webpages). But more interestingly, it made me deeply consider the words that have become the norm to use within the context of the internet: follow, chat, like, discover, friend, etc. Having grown up with the internet, I had not even thought twice about the strange new meanings these words hold in the epoch of the internet. Once we began to record synonyms for the words that attracted our attention, the other humorous and at times creepy hidden faces of these words surfaced–to follow is to stalk, to chat is to gossip, and so on.

The photo below is a screenshot of the music streaming website and app SoundCloud which I frequently visit. It is marked with colorful dots indicating the words my peers found most interesting.

Over the next few days the class discussed our findings in breakout groups and began to develop our Layer Statements for Living comprised of our favorite or most voten on action verb from the first exercise, and a noun of our own choosing. As I further looked into the meanings behind to chat, its synonym to *gossip particularly stuck in my mind. Thus my statement became gossiping for enjoyment in the interface.

Then we began to brainstorm what the interactions stemming from our statements might look like. Thinking back to my childhood playing games and browsing websites–particularly those aimed towards young girls–I was inspired by their "girlie" color schemes of pink, purple, yellow, and white. This nostalgic line of thinking also made me think of the teen magazines I used to read and I rediscovered their mind map-like quizzes. The blocky, cutesy pages motivated me to create an interaction which would take the user through the chaotic lines of communication which take place during a gossip/chat session, organized in a way similar to the teen magazine quizzes and utilizing a similar aesthetic of cuteness. I also thought back to a stereotype which existed long before the internet: that young girls and women spend their days gossiping over trivial dramas. I wanted to keep this in mind as I formed the statements that would live in this interface–I wanted to play upon the silliness of gossip and internet slang while maintaining a level of critical thought which drew upon readings from the course.

Finally, as I began to think of the user flow, Stephanie suggested we use an expanded poetic user story title to find direction. Thus Gossiping for enjoyment in the interface became as a nosy user, I want to gossip within the glitch so that I can feel alive/sentient.

The first image is a screenshot from the old Website Stardoll where users could dress up celebrities in outfits of their choosing. The second image is a photo of a quiz in the teen magazine Teen Beat.

The Finished Interaction~

The finished interaction begins with a Kaomoji, an emoticon created with keyboard characters, (such as the one in this post's header)–the user clicks on it and the gossip session begins! They are guided to click through a somewhat hectic series of questions and statements accompanied by a corresponding Kaomoji. The statements and questions in the interaction are inspired by Laurel Schwulst's essay My Website is a Shifting House Next to a River of Knowledge. What Could Yours be?. I was struck by her assertion that a website should be imperfect, unfinished, and living because a complete archive of works would be "dead on arrival". With this in mind I also structured the movement through the interaction to be cyclical, constantly looping back on itself.

Below is a screenshot of the starting interaction and question in my prototype.