13
might be on its way are publication of case studies that explain both that positive emotional
experience makes people more creative and efficient, as well as studies showing that
interfaces can provide people that positive experience. Additionally enabling change is the
refining of tests that reveal users’ emotional responses more effectively than previous
tests.19 Yet, whatever increased interest HCI designers might take in emotion, there is no
sign that they will look to the emotion affixed to gesture to provide it.
***
Mother Nature: The Practice
Mother Nature: The Game
Mother Nature is a game/interactive experience that makes the fundamental
components of life in the natural world -- the beauty, the generativity, the conflict and the
destruction -- into the tools of play. In Mother Nature, the body is the controller; the
objects it controls and the interactions it influences are modeled on the objects and
interactions of the real world.
A person intending to build a gardening game in which the player’s experience is
intended to center on generating life ought to include: (a) a way of bringing seed into the
world; (b) a way of bringing nourishing rain into the world; and (c) a way of turning that
potential for growth into real, meaningful growth. In nature, much has a dual nature: what
is helpful in some circumstances and in some degrees can be harmful at other times or in a
19 A Agarwal and A Meyer, ‘Beyond Usability: Evaluating Emotional Response as an
Integral Part of the User Experience’ CHI 2009 Case Studies New Usability Metrics and
Methods pp. 2919 – 2930.