The Genarrator authoring experience: A UX evaluation approach.

Abstract

The Genarrator platform provides a user-friendly visual interface toolset for the creation and hosting of interactive hypertext multimedia stories. Launched in 2010 as free-to-use online tool, it currently hosts more than 1300 working narratives. While there is existing research on the reader experience with this kind of technology and the narratives it offers, comparatively little is known about the author experience. We previously conducted an online survey involving 24 interactive narrative design students who had used Genarrator for an assignment as an initial approach to receive constructive feedback about the tool from people who had genuinely used it before. Wanting to explore further input from authors and understand on a deeper level the experience that Genarrator offers for narrative authors we decided to conduct a small usability test study with narrative design students who previously provided feedback on the tool, and further employ observations, interviews, and analysis of their stories to understand their overall experience. We conclude that our user experience approach, albeit small, allowed us to observe realistically how authors use Genarrator and recognise conceptual differences between how we as tool creators see the tool and how our participants as authors view it as users.