An Interactive Computer Video Game for the Design Museum: Using Technology to Teach

Technology
Author(s): Robin Baker
Source: Leonardo, Vol. 24, No. 4, (1991), pp. 427-431
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1575520
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GENERAL NOTE

An Interactive Computer
Video Game for the Design
Museum: Using Technology
to Teach Technology

RobinBaker

ABSTRACT

Theauthor discussesthe
DesignMuseum inLondon, which
Theuse of new meansof representation shouldnot be been uncoordinated or inacces- addressesthelimitations
ofstatic
sible, the Design Museum will museum Thisnew
displays.
limitedto schoolsand universities,but shouldalso beex-
help bring about a new relation- museum's designersbeganwith
tendedto museums:in a new kind of museum,the 'elec- thepremise thatobjectsonplinths
ship between industy, commerce
tronicmuseum',historicalobjectswouldplay a secondary and the public. It will be a show- merelyencourage aimlessbrows-
role,and visitorswould beofferedfarbetteropportunitiesto case, a marketplace and an audi- ing,andthustheyset aboutcreat-
torium, a highly visible bridge inganenvironment thatinstead
satisfytheirappetiteforexperimenting.Thevisualisationof between two cultures [2]. involves
actively His
participants.
instructionalmaterialis one of thegreattasksof ourfuture. discussion
followstheprocessof
The Design Museum in Lon- determiningthemuseum's format,
-Herbert W. Franke [1]
don, since opening in summer partof whichincludesa computer
1989, has attempted to solve gamethatrecreates thedesign
The problem of static display in the museum environment . these allowing a
participants
some of thesesome issuesprocess,
issues. The chanceto designandevaluateprod-
has become highlighted, as much of our everyday life is museum attempts to offer a ina
uctsandto learninteractively
pervaded with high levels of interactivity with cars, videos, range of resources that design- environment.
stimulating
computers and many other consumer products. If museums ers, industry and business may
are to represent the twentieth century in all its technological draw upon to create better
complexity, then they need to develop twentieth-centurytech- products, while providing stu-
niques of communication that are educationally effective. dents and the public with a stimulating environment in
which to view, experience and evaluate the design process.
Design is an essentialresourcefor industryand a valuable
The Design Museum was the idea of the British designer
discipline in education, but before the Design Museum there
was nowhere [in Great Britain] that it could be systematically and entrepreneur Terence Conran and is the successor to a
studied or displayed. The Design Museum is concerned with popular gallery and study centre called the Boilerhouse
the history, practice, theory and future of design in mass-pro-
duced consumer products and services. By popularising, ex- Project, which was located in the lower basement of the
Victoria and Albert Museum and closed in 1986. Its activities
plaining, analysing and criticising manufacturing industry
and working designers, by offering an international range of became too demanding for the Victoria and Albert
information, ideas and images which would hitherto have Museum, and an old warehouse site near London's Tower
Bridge was converted to hold the new Design Museum.
Fig. 1. A model of the basic structure of the game, showing the However, the new museum continues the traditions of the
relationship between each of the components. Note that the cost Boilerhouse Project by examining the links between the com-
factors are seen as influencing the shape parameters, mechanics
and marketing. merce and culture of twentieth-century industrial products.
The new museum building, with its obvious architectural
references to modernism, contains a small permanent col-
lection of twentieth-century objects. On the lower floors,
Introduction
one finds a gallery for assessing newly designed products and
an exhibition space for large international exhibitions. In
addition, the museum has a library, small exhibition galler-
SHAPE ies, a section demonstrating the use of technology in design,
-''"- and a restaurant overlooking the river Thames.
As the emphasis is on twentieth-century mass-produced
objects, which by their very definition are indistinguishable
i !
MECHANICS | COSTS from the process that created them, there is considerable
information in the Design Museum on product-planning
I
data, advertising, legislative material, models, sketches and
m

MARKETING -
I
m m
Robin Baker (educator), Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU,
U.K.
Received 13 October 1989.

? 1991 ISAST
PergamonPresspic.PrintedinGreatBritain.
0024-094X/91$3.00+0.00 LEONARDO, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 427-431, 1991 427
 production methods. This enables the
objects to be seen, understood and in-
terpreted as part of a process and not
merely as a product. Part of this process
must include a view of technology and
the way it has affected both the design
process and the product.
GAME CONCEPT
Technology has always played an im-
portant role in design, but in the past
this role emphasised manufacturing
techniques and production. However,
the introduction of the use of the com-
puter in design has not only begun
to change the manufacturing process
but also to fundamentally affect the de-
sign process. Part of the Design Mu-
seum's initial taskwas to explain the use
of information technology (particu-
larly computers) within design by the
use of interactive techniques that would
adequately cover the complexities of
the issues involved. The concept of
using a computer game to engage the
How to play Introduction
Briefing Designing
SHAPE PARAMETERS
1 Size of head
2 Shapeof neck
3 Lengthof handle
I viewers to determine their own courses
MECHANICS
1 Materials - type and cost
2 Ergonomics- dentalandhumanfactors
3 Productionconstraints
m new way of dealing with literary sub-
MARKETING
]
1 Colour
2 Presentation
428 Baker,An Interactive Computer Video Game for the Design Museum
udience evolved from this task. The
dea of the game had two important
equirements: first, that the player's in-
eractivitywould be inherent and, sec-
>nd,that references would be made to
he arcade video game culture. The
)roblem was how to design a game that
ould look realistically at design and
echnology issues and yet be as involv-
ng as computer video games. If these
equirements could be met, then some
)f the issues of dynamic displays and
heir role in communicating complex
phenomena would be addressed, and
he Design Museum would be using
echnology to teach technology.
From the many uses of computing
vithin the design arena, computer-
ided design (CAD) was selected be-
ause this form of software is an impor-
ant component of many design
)racticesand the public is familiar with
t.Also, because CAD emphasises three-
limensional modelling and rendered
mages, the results would be visually
nteresting and attractive to the user.
rhe use of CAD systems in design has
Fig. 2. A detailed
view of the con-
tent of the game
model, illustrating
the breakdown
of the various
components.
become established and is now largely
replacing many of the drawingand mod-
elling skills that were the traditional
backbone of post-World War II design
organisations. Much publicity has sur-
rounded the introduction of computer
systems in design, and as a result many
of the visitors to the Design Museum
will be aware of this development.
Planning for the development of the
game, based on CAD software, was
begun in 1987 and was aimed at creat-
ing a fully interactive solids modeller
with which visitors could generate an
object, evaluate aspects of its perform-
ance, look at production methods and
materials and then produce a hardcopy
of the design.
Unfortunately, the production of an
image of an object with some design
content demands time, expert knowl-
edge and patience on the part of the
player. All of these requirements op-
posed the game's concept, which
pointed to the need for low learning
curves, simple menu structures and im-
mediate usability. The interface would
have to guide the player though the
stages of the game with maximum ele-
gance and speed and be highly sensitive
to the needs of casual use.
By using a large database of solid
modelled components, associated ana-
lytical data and shaded images that
could then be assembled to form the
designed object, it was possible to cre-
ate the skeleton of the game. How-
ever, this skeleton merely represented
the design activity itself and did not
refer to the context-the design brief
and client-considered by the Design
Museum to be an integral part of the
process.
The interactivevideodiscoffered these
benefits with its ability to store different
formats of information, allowing the
of action, their own directions, depth
of information desired and, even, the
eventual outcome of the game.
It is quite possible to have a plot that
instead of being linear is ramified-
the actual plot is determined by the
reader. This method, which is already
used in computer games, will lead to a
jects which will involve not only plot
narration but also the creation of actual
images that replace conventional de-
scriptions of landscapes and environ-
ments. Thus the user is assigned a part
in the plot, which through the use of
images becomes very realistic [3].
The 54,000 single-image capacity on
each side of the videodisc allows about
36 min of continuous running time,

with the advantage that each frame can
be individually identified and accessed
almost instantaneously. In addition, the
ability to include live video sequences
and audio channels provides a flexi-
bility that allows visitors a responsive
role, and places them in control of the
interaction. Most importantly, this tech-
nology allows details of the context of
the design process to be included.
The game is aimed at young people
between the ages of 7 and 16, who would
probably have had some experience in
using computers at school and would
also be familiar with computer video
games. Also, if the content of the game
were appropriate, it could be used to
support the work in the Design and
Technology section of the new national
curricula for secondary education.
Within education a videodisc can be
used in two distinct pedagogic ways:as
a self-instructionaltool for an individual
or small group of students and as a
classroom resource for the teacher.
The museum decided upon the former
use, with the possibility of researching
how effective the 'resource' view could
be, taking into account the visual (35-
mm slide) database that the museum
was establishing.
Late in 1987 a small design team was
established at the Royal College of Art
to develop the game using HyperCard
software as a prototyping tool for the
game [4]. The game was divided into
an introduction and three major sec-
tions:shape parameters, mechanics and
marketing. Cost factors were seen as
influencing all three of these decision
areas.
The basic model for the game (Fig. 1)
provided an overview, with a more
detailed account (Fig. 2) presented to
the user, in modified form, to more
realistically communicate the game's
intentions and to provide user interac-
tion as early as possible in the game.
GAME INTERFACE
A number of design decisions were
made that provided the graphic struc-
ture. Interaction with the game was
constructed via a resistive membrane
touch screen [5] to eliminate all key-
board work. This was decided for three
reasons: First, it solved the need to
move away from the keyboard to other
forms of more appropriate interaction
for the designer. Second, it allowed the
most direct form of interaction, point-
ing and touching. As this is very much
part of our everyday life, it was hoped
_W-I -a: --_
r.; -- _
. ; ... -
/
.-.
VNO
~. ~1
Fig. 3. The lower section of the screen was
designated a button area that would allow
the user to interact with the game. To
make a clear distinction between the YES
and NO buttons, the YES buttons were
made green and circular and the NO but-
tons red and square. Each button is ap-
proximately the size of a fingerpiint.
that this would encourage interaction
from visitors who are unfamiliar with
computers. Third, this system avoided,
as far as possible, misuse of the system.
Touch screens are fast but can be
somewhat inaccurate. The speed of in-
teraction was an advantage, as the pace
of the game required quick decisions
and responses, and the inaccuracy did
not matter, as the target areas could be
large and dispersed over the screen area.
Areas of the screen were designated
as 'buttons' and were positioned in the
lowest section of the screen, each but-
ton roughly approximating the size of
a fingerprint (Fig. 3). So that the player
could progress at a rate suitable for
gaining an understanding of the game,
an additional button for CONTINUE
was included to allow for a pause. The
location, form and colour of each but-
ton type remained the same so that the
screen design would be consistent and
confirm the users' expectations of ap-
pearance and behaviour.
The ability to pace
the needs of the visitors presupposes a
pause action that can be user-controlled.
However, it also would be necessary to
distinguish between a genuine pause
and a disinterest in continuing with the
game. This was achieved by a simple
time lapse, after which a warning screen
appeared, and, if no input was received,
the game defaulted to the beginning.
The warning panel (Fig. 4) appears in
the lower section of the screen, over-
writes the YES/NO buttons and allows
the player a further 20 sec before can-
celing the game. A bleep was added
to confirm the button choice on all
screens requiring a decision.
For the game to have some realism,
the relationship between time and
money needed to be firmly established
Baker,An Interactive Computer Video Game for the Design Museum
'
YI YiYES1 NO rF
Fig. 4. If there is a pause in the play, this
message appears. If there is no response,
after a period of time the game defaults to
the beginning.
4500
a hBNO'
Fig. 5. The money-clock at the top right-
hand corner of the screen starts counting
down from ?4500 as soon as the design
part of the game is initiated. This provides
a constant reminder to the user of the
'costs' involved in designing an object.
with the player. This was achieved by
setting aside a rectangular area in the
top right-hand corner of the screen for
a money-clock (Fig. 5) that counts
down from the budget figure of ?4,500
as the game proceeds. This gives the
user a constant reminder of the 'costs'
involved in the design activity,as well as
providing a useful incentive to design
an object that both complies with the
brief and is acceptable to the client as
the game to quickly as possible.
The Sony Viewplay (interactive pro-
grams generator) software that was
used provides a basic graphics editor
with standard functions [6]. There are
256 colours available, and it comes with
filling and drawing commands and a
function to display transparent colour.
The text editor contained only five
fonts in six sizes, but it allowed pitch,
edge and shadow control of the charac-
ters and pixel editing. The fonts were
nonstandard, and after initial testing,
Europ in 24 and 32 point was used as
the most legible typeface, with a small
drop-shadow to separate the text from
the background.
The authoring software was in an
early stage of development and did not
allow for extensive program control.
429
 GAME STRUCTURE
There is an initial loop that gives the
game title followed by the credits
and sponsors. This moves through the
screens, which are interspaced with
computer-generated images, until a
STARTbutton is pressed, and the game
begins.
The player is offered four choice but-
tons: How to play, Introduction, Brief-
ing and Designing. All are active, but
they have to be accessed in the correct
order. 'How to play' explains what the
buttons mean. 'Introduction' explains
the role and position of computers in
design, and 'Briefing' sets the purpose
of a design brief. The 'Designing' but-
ton allows the player to use the simu-
lated CAD to design a product.
The player assumes the role of the
designer and makes design decisions
on shape, size and colour to arrive at a
successful design for an object-in this
case, a toothbrush. Other aspects of
the use of computers in design are
addressed by looking at differing mate-
rials and cost, productions methods, a
simulated finite element analysis and
marketing constraints. All this is set
against an elapsed time, as the game is
played, that the computer then con-
verts into costs and deducts from the
fee for the project. Design projects
begin with a brief, which is the client's
instructions to the designer, and the
Fig. 6. The Design Museum computer video game being used in the upper gallery. Players
use headphones so that conversations generated by the game are contained. Six worksta-
tions were installed in a space devoted to the use of technology as a means of providing in-
formation about design, the design process and designers. A HyperCard database on
designers and products is adjacent to the game, as is a section called 'talking heads', in
which taped interviews with designers can be accessed. (Photo: ? Robin Baker)
430 Baker,An Interactive Computer Video Game for the Design Museum
game follows this route with a video
sequence between the client and the
design when the parameters of the de-
sign are established. The brief is also
shown as a text screen that can be called
up at any point in the game so that the
player can refer to the requirements.
SHAPE PARAMETERS
The game recognises a heavy focus on
form-giving. Initially it was intended to
provide the player with as much formal
manipulation as possible within the
constraints of the brief. However, rapid
and easy shape-making within a com-
puter system is not easy, particularly if
a degree of sophistication is required.
The approach taken with the pro-
totypical model of a toothbrush 'allows'
alterations to three parts of the brush:
the head, the handle and the shape of
the neck. These were seen as the major
components of the toothbrush and the
aspects over which the designer-player
would wish to have design control. Two
head sizes are allowed, as are two
handle sizes and four neck shapes. The
16 models possible were constructed in
wireframes on a Silicon Graphics work-
station using Alias software. This sec-
tion of the game had to be iterative, so
that designers could finally arrive atjust
the combinations of components that
they wanted and were satisfied that
their design complied with the brief.
The design of this part of the game was
the most difficult, as it was necessary to
give sufficient freedom to the designer-
players to enable them to feel that they
really did have a choice in form-making
and that this choice was a reasonable
representation of the design process
itself. Where it was impossible to allow
intervention of the designer-player was
in the 'tweaking' aspect that is common
to all design, where only a very slight
variation of form is required.
The criteria for the design of the
toothbrush, at this stage, is aesthetic,
and only when the designer-player is
satisfied with the 'look' of the tooth-
brush does the game proceed. That is
not to say that the visual aspects of the
design cannot be changed at a later
point in the game, and indeed some
of the other analyses of the tooth-
brush may well require a change in
the design.
MECHANICS
At the point at which the designer-
player decides that the design is suf-
ficient, in visual terms, to meet the
requirements of the brief, then the
'client' requests to view the design
(video sequence) and agrees with the
work so far. This provides the necessary
feedback from the client and reinforces
the design decisions that have been
made.
The designer-player is then asked
to make a decision regarding the ma-
terial from which the toothbrush will
be made. Four possibilities are offered:
Polystyrene,Polystyrene San, Nylon and
Polycarbonate. Explanations of certain
properties and costs are given, and from
this information the choice is made;
but all the materials, except one, fail on
differing counts: Polystyrene because it
is too weak, Nylon because it is opaque
and Polycarbonate because it is too ex-
pensive. This leaves Polystyrene San as
the single appropriate material.
The next analysis involves dental
ergonomics, the need to take into
account the size and shape of mouth
within the age group for which the
toothbrush is designed, and how this
will affect the shape and size of some of
the components of the toothbrush.
Two further kinds of analyses are
offered: the calculation of the amount
of material used, which provides the
cost of the brush, and a simulated finite
element analysis.
All of the analysis sequences aim to
show how the computer can perform
useful tasks to aid the designer-player
in producing a design that will conform
to the requirements of the brief. In ad-
dition it will demonstrate that the effect
of computing on the design process will
cause fairly radical changes by allowing
the designer access to information that
previously would have been considered
outside the designer's professional
competence.
How the toothbrush will be pro-
duced is also an important considera-
tion, and the designer-player is given
a brief description of the production
processes. A more detailed explanation
can be accessed by selecting a video
sequence on injection moulding.
MARKETING
This aspect of design is represented by
the final choice of colour and the trans-
parency or opacity of the material for
the toothbrush. Market research infor-
mation about customers' preferences is
noted in the brief, and the designer-
player is expected to make an informed
decision.
Finally, if the correct choices for the
form, material and colour have been
made, and the designer-player has man-
aged to stay within the budget, then
the design is displayed as a rendered
animated sequence that shows the
toothbrush as a fully visualised object.
A hardcopy of the design is then pro-
duced to record both the design and
the visit to the Design Museum.
EVALUATION
So far the computer game has worked
well and is being played by about a third
of the museum's visitors (Fig. 6), who
use it in two distinct ways. One way is as
a popular diversion, which was to be
expected, as the idea had its roots in the
arcade video game. But another use has
been to develop a sense of context for
many of the products on display. This
supports the philosophy of the Design
Museum that mass-produced objects
would be meaningless in isolation from
their context. Information and inter-
pretation are essential to avoid a banal
view of artifacts and, it is hoped, to
remove any hint that the museum is
Baker,An Interactive Computer Video Game for the Design Museum
providing an approved aesthetic for
public consumption. Industrially pro-
duced objects of the twentieth century
should not be an end in themselves but
a starting point for discussion and eval-
uation, an attitude to which the com-
puter game contributes.
References and Notes
1. Herbert W. Franke, "The Expanding Medium:
The Future of Computer Art", Leonardo20, No. 4
(1987) p. 337.
2. Stephen Bailey, "The Design Museum Mani-
festo" (The Design Museum, London, U.K., 1988,
press release).
3. Herbert W. Franke, "The New Visual Age: The
Influence of Computer Graphics on Art and
Society", Leonardo18, No. 2 (1985) p. 106.
4. The design team included Adrian Ellis, Chief
Executive; Helen Rees, Curator of the Design
Museum; Robin Baker, Directorof Computing, the
Royal College of Art (RCA); Donald Hickey,
graduate student at RCA; and Geoff Smith, pro-
grammer.
5. This is an Ellinor Turbo touch screen on a SONY
IV system that includes a SMC 3000VP computer, a
laser videodisc player and a 440 Trinitron monitor.
The integral resistive membrane touch screen has
0.25-mm dot pitch with 256 x 256 resolution.
6. Sony was a major sponsor of the Design Museum
and provided the hardware and software for the
game.
431