Abstract
This paper investigates the contribution of narrativised interface design to the overall narrative expressivity of this work. A close reading of the graphic interactive novel The Boat reveals the reliance on a narrativised interface throughout the experience. The narrativised interface increases the impact of the work, as the user’s navigation of the plot brings the story to life. The collaged visual presentation format both reinforces the story’s overall emotional tenor and focuses the user’s attention on the component micronarratives. This dynamic collage aesthetic creates a postmodernist artefact by mixing, sequencing, and superimposing media forms: illustrations, panels, text, photographs, and video. We argue that the narrativised interface elements intensify cognitive interactivity and increase immersion into the story as it unfolds. This narrative expressivity accentuates the perception of the storyworld. We also observe that the multi-mediated collage aesthetic bridges the digital and real worlds, leading to a hypermediated yet engaged experience. The work balances ambiguities and dualities - such as reality/imagination, photography/drawing, motion/still, sound/image. This unconventional and active interface design ruptures any passive reader experience. The resulting narrative texture supports an ongoing dialectic of immediacy and hypermediacy. This dialectic both draws the viewer into the ongoing story of The Boat, and highlights the work’s higher-level themes: the fragility of life and the solitary nature of survival in a threatening world.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Barthes, R.: Introduction to the structural analysis of the narrative. Discussion Paper, University of Birmingham, Birmingham (1966)
Polkinghorne, D.E.: Narrative and self concept. J. Narrative Life Hist. 1(2), 135–153 (1991)
Ryan, M.-L.: Story/worlds/media tuning the instruments of a media-conscious narratology, In: Storyworlds Across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (2014)
Bizzocchi, J.: Ceremony of innocence: a case study o the emergent poetics of interactive narrative. Master thesis, MIT Press, Cambridge (2001)
Manovich, L.: The Language of New Media. The MIT Press, London (2002)
Jenkins, H.: Game design as narrative architecture. In: First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, pp. 118–130. MIT Press, Cambridge (2004)
Bizzocchi, J.: Game and narrative: an analytical framework. J. Can. Games Stud. Assoc. 1, 1–10 (2007)
Bolter, J.D., Grusin, R.: Remediation. MIT Press, Cambridge (1999)
Zimmerman, E.: Narrative, interactivity, play and games. In: First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, pp. 154–164. MIT Press, Cambridge (2004)
Le, N.: The Boat. Alfred A. Knopf, New York (2008)
Bal, M.: Visual narrativity. In: Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. Routledge, London (2010)
Bal, M.: Looking in the Art of Viewing. G+B Arts International, Singapore (2001)
Jahn, M.: Focalization. In: Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. Routledge, London (2010)
Niederhoff, B.: Focalization. In: The Living Handbook of Narratology. Walter de Gruyter, Hamburg (2011)
Horstkotte, S., Pedri, N.: Focalization in graphic narrative. Narrative 19(3), 330–357 (2011)
Palmer, A.: Fictional Minds. University of Nebaska Press (2004)
Van Looy, J., Baetans, J.: Close Reading New Media: Analysing Electronic Literature. Leuven University Press, Leuven (2003)
Bizzocchi, J., Tanenbaum, T.: Well read: applying close reading techniques to gameplay experiences. In: Well-Played 3.0, pp. 218–315. ETC Press, Pittsburgh (2011)
Bordwell, D.: Poetics of Cinema. Routledge, New York (2007)
Bizzocchi, J., Lin, M.B., Tanenbaum, J.: Game, narrative and the design of interface. Int. J. Art Technol. 4, 460–479 (2011)
Maud, L.: Cut with the Kitchen Knife: The Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Hoch. Yale Univiversity Press, New Haven (1993)
Bizzocchi, J.: Ceremony of innocence and the subversion of interface: cursor transformation as a narrative device. In: Digital Arts and Culture Conference Proceedings Melbourne, Australia (2003)
Manghani, S.: Ink and wonder. Times Higher Educ. Supplement 1943, 40, 15 (2010)
McCloud, S.: Understanding Comics. Harper Perennials, New York (1994)
Gunning, T.: The Cinema of Attractions, in Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative, pp. 63–70. BFI Publishing, London (1990)
Engell, J., Bates, W.J.: The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Princeton, Biographia Literaria (1983)
Gunning, T.: What’s the point of an index? Or faking photographs. NORDICOM Rev. 5(1/2), 39–49 (2004)
McBess: The Dead Pirates, 05 July 2016. http://www.overthetinyhills.com/. Accessed 14 Apr 2016
Beck, A.: After the Storm, Helios Design Labs (2016). http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/interactive/after-the-storm/#/dear-future-disaster-survivor. Accessed 4 Apr 2016
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Fadel, L.M., Bizzocchi, J. (2022). Narrative Infusion in Web Design. In: Martins, N., Brandão, D. (eds) Advances in Design and Digital Communication II. DIGICOM 2021. Springer Series in Design and Innovation , vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89735-2_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89735-2_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-89734-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-89735-2
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)