Journal of Digital Media and Interaction

Desire to Communicate (Editorial)

Assessing a 3D digital Prototype for Teaching the Brazilian Sign Language Alphabet: an Alternative for Non-programming Designers

Abstract This study aims to analyse the users’ perceptions about a 3D digital artifacts prototype for teaching the fingerspelling alphabet of Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS). For this purpose, a high-fidelity prototype was developed with a non-programming method, and a usability test was conducted using a structured questionnaire with 31 participants, including Deaf and hearing people. Most users (96.7%) rated the learning experience with the tool as positive, with 67.7% rating the experience as "good", 12.9% as "very good", and 16.1% as "excellent". Comparing the evaluation between Deaf and hearing people showed that both target groups mostly rated it positively. However, most hearing people rated it "good," while the majority of the Deaf rated it as "excellent" (29%) or "outstanding" (14%) compared to 13% and 12%, respectively, among the hearing. In summary, considering the variables presented, the experience was well rated and did not encounter solid obstacles or resistance.

Computational Media and the Paradox of Permanence

Abstract Throughout our history as communicative beings, we sought permanence from media that we used to store information, communicate, and help us deal with the ever-changing world. For the longest time, analogue media carried out these tasks despite their slow, but inevitable, processes of physical decay, but nowadays, computational technologies are generally proposed as fast, cheap, and convenient alternatives to the limitations of analogue technologies. This paper argues that regardless of how computational technologies are perceived as upgraded versions of the analogue media forms that preceded them, their effectiveness as media is limited because computational forms are anything but permanent. We claim that it is our refusal, and our fear, of impermanence that drives the desire to construct a worldview that is biased for permanence, even when the opposite lies before our eyes, as happens with computational media forms. This leads to a dissonance between the world as it is and the world as we perceive it, and to a paradox at the heart of computational media forms. This dissonance limits our relationships with these media, our literacy, and the ways how we can develop meaning and nurture creative relationships with them.

Método para Avaliação e Classificação das Dimensões de Imersão em Narrativas

Resumo Uma narrativa imersiva deve prover a imersão do público-alvo considerando três dimensões de imersão narrativa: temporal, espacial e emocional. Apresentamos e exemplificamos o uso de um método que avalia e classifica estas dimensões em narrativas, apoiando reflexões para a sua alteração, de acordo com os objetivos pedagógicos almejados pelo docente. O método foi desenvolvido enquanto artefacto de Design Science Research (DSR). Foi aplicado empiricamente numa unidade curricular do ensino superior português em regime de e-learning assíncrono na Universidade Aberta, que utiliza narrativas para imersão narrativa e promover a autorregulação e corregulação das aprendizagens: Laboratório de Desenvolvimento de Software. Os resultados indicam que o método permite detectar diferenças de nível de recurso às várias dimensões de imersão narrativa, como ocorreu no caso apresentado. Esta análise, além de permitir esta avaliação e classificação em narrativas, dá aos seus criadores (e.g., professores e profissionais não especialistas) consciência destas situações ao longo da narrativa. Possibilita, desta forma, uma visão global e uma reflexão fundamentada, que pode inspirar intervenções para reformular as dimensões de imersão narrativa a proporcionar ao público-alvo.

Abstract An immersive narrative means to promote immersion of its target audience, considering three dimensions of narrative immersion: temporal, spatial and emotional. We present and demonstrate the use of a method for evaluating and classifying these dimensions in narratives, enabling reflections for their reformulation according to the pedagogical objectives of the teacher. The method was developed as an artifact of Design Science Research (DSR). It was applied empirically in Portuguese higher education, on an asynchronous e-learning course at Universidade Aberta, which uses narratives for narrative immersion and promoting self-regulation and co-regulation of learning: Software Development Laboratory. The results show that the method enables detection of differences in the level of use of the various dimensions of narrative immersion, as shown for a sample case. This analysis, beyond its usefulness for this evaluation and classification upon narratives, enables their creators (e.g. teachers and non-specialist professionals) to become aware of these situations. Therefore, it provides an overview and supports grounded reflection, inspiring interventions to reformulate the dimensions of narrative immersion that one wants to provide to the target audience.

The Alienated Senses: Artificial Stimuli for Sensory Perceptions in Interaction with Infomata

Abstract This is a qualitative study of exploratory nature, that investigates the senses alienated by the transformation of domestic objects into media, adding to communication and information technologies a functional meaning of interaction. This article aims to substantiate that environment perception through the senses changes when dealing with media infomata, which that have become ways of both media distribution and information storage. The high-tech revolution brought new questions, while household appliances act as media by providing, actively, interactively, or passively, connections between people, infomata, databases and objects. It bets on the alteration of subjectivities from the modulation of experience by interaction human-technology and, therefore, uses the theory of materialities in communication, of the human mechanization and modulations between bodies, technologies, and environment. The qualitative research evolved personal testimonies from 14 volunteers from Rio de Janeiro e São Paulo, during the first semester of 2023. The sample as non-random, purposive sample, constituted of subjects that are knowledgeable individuals in the context of the study. Analysis reveals layers of alienation about the use and role of domestic digital personal assistants and an imminent artificialization of sensorial perception.