Browser Based Narrative

15102013

Forking Pathways

In class today, we learned about forking pathways in regards to webdesign. We learned about the different ways to plan the layout of a website. We can also use this way to plan out any kind of narrative.

When we come out into the industry, we need to have a structure to fulfill the conditions of the brief. We can do that by making a visual flowchart. A flowchart is a type of diagram that represents a process or algorithm that shows steps as boxes and their order connected by arrows. Flowcharts are used to design, document, or analyze a process. This diagram illustrations solutions to problems. Process operations are represented by boxes and arrows are the direction in which this problem passes through. These processes happen in a sequencial order that eventually comes to a solution. Branching narratives are often known as an open and non linear interactive process which acquires the influence of the user's behaviors and personality to come to a conclusion.

This can be seen in a few different examples that I have shown below. In many cases, the flow of the boxes do not have to be in any form of order. This is shown effectively in the examples as the arrows direct the user's attention and help the user come to his/her very own conclusion.

As a group, Hali, Anastasia, Gemma and I picked the Madeline McCann story to make a flowchart. Everyone of us illustrated a part of the story.

1. Madeline's family got to a plane to Portugal
2. The whole family went on a vacation
3. Her parents having dinner
4. Madeline went missing


As we pinned this up on the board, we tried to see if we could link our story to another. By choosing another story that relates to ours, we as the users create our own links and conclusions from one platform to another. This shows how we all started off by making the same stories but are able to conclude it individually, fulfilling the non linear criteria of interaction.

I managed to link our story together with the story of Nemo because of the age in which they were lost, and the situations they were caught in.