What The...?

As we looked at in class, IF is primarily about puzzles. Solving puzzles given by the creator and figuring our the correct keyword input. David Perkins, in his book The Eureka Effect: The Art and Logic of Breakthrough Thinking, talks about a rompecabeza. It is a spanish word in two parts: romper means 'to break' and cabeza is 'head'. Rompecabezas are head breakers. Read the article in the reader, The Desing of Puzzles (middle of reader), if you missed class.

Even without a putting a puzzle into your creative works (be it website, animation or installation) a viewer will come along and go through a process of trying to untangle, to figure out what how it works and perhaps what is means and what it is. Some works are blatantly easy: click here for info, click here to go to the next page. But you can, as we've seen with sites where you have to use mouse-overs instead of clicking, force the user to figure out how to operate your piece.

Show me ways sites or installations have made the user work to figure something out, solve a puzzle of some kind, or preferably, suggest your own.

Have fun next week with Tom.