Janet Murray | Georgia Institute of Technology (original) (raw)

Papers by Janet Murray

PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality

The Pickrick Protests is a project exploring the use of Augmented Reality (AR) to recreate a sequ... more The Pickrick Protests is a project exploring the use of Augmented Reality (AR) to recreate a sequence of Civil Rights--era incidents that occurred at the Pickrick restaurant, in Atlanta, over a period of 8 months in 1964–1965. This project gives a connected and chronological narrative of the historic events to form a cohesive experience, with AR projections of computer graphic depictions of the 1960s buildings, and events on the site where they happened. The objective of this project is to make the history of the Civil Rights Movement visible by privileging the perspective of the African Americans who fought for equality. This paper focuses on introducing the narrative design for this location-based AR application (Bowman et al., 1998). We will discuss our approach to creating a meaningful narrative within the technical affordances and environmental constraints of the AR medium and the specific location. The design challenges posed by this project were how to merge the virtual conte...

Interactive Storytelling, 2020

Statics, a foundational engineering course, introduces a unique approach to problem solving, whic... more Statics, a foundational engineering course, introduces a unique approach to problem solving, which is characterized by model-based reasoning. The major intended course outcome is for students to develop the ability to create and utilize free-body diagrams as a mechanism for describing and constraining a problem. This ability to abstract and define an idealized problem from complex objects in the world or textual descriptions ratchets the engineer's ability to solve the problem. Sadly, however, students routinely leave this course having learned to "plug and chug" or jump to a mathematical equation without first defining the problem in a diagrammatic form that articulates the underlying principles. This can lead to serious problems in future courses as the fundamental approach to engineering problem solving has not been understood or embraced. As a foundational course, difficulties here can impact student academic confidence resulting in a diminished sense of self-effic...

Interactive Storytelling, 2020

Extended Abstracts of the 2021 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, 2021

Dino-Store is a persuasive game that was designed to use gamification way to communicate with peo... more Dino-Store is a persuasive game that was designed to use gamification way to communicate with people and raise awareness on COVID-19. The game's setting is grocery shopping and the mechanic indicates that how different protection strategies, such as wearing mask, keeping social distance can affect people's infection chances in the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper will break down how the game designed by merging concepts from persuasive game models and uncomfortable interaction theory to create an engaging, but stressful experience for the user. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → User centered design.

Statics, a foundational engineering course, introduces a unique approach to problem solving, whic... more Statics, a foundational engineering course, introduces a unique approach to problem solving, which is characterized by model-based reasoning. The major intended course outcome is for students to develop the ability to create and utilize free body diagrams as a mechanism for describing and constraining a problem. This ability to abstract and define an idealized problem from complex objects in the world or textual descriptions ratchets the engineer's ability to solve the problem. Sadly, however, students routinely leave this course having learned to "plug and chug" or jump to a mathematical equation without first defining the problem in a diagrammatic form that articulates the underlying principles. This can lead to serious problems in future courses as the fundamental approach to engineering problem solving has not been understood or embraced. As a foundational course, difficulties here can impact student academic confidence resulting in a diminished sense of self-effic...

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

Her research focuses on understanding learning in interdisciplines towards designing educational ... more Her research focuses on understanding learning in interdisciplines towards designing educational environments that develop integrative problem solving.

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

Tech. She has published 12 books and more than 130 journal articles on the theoretical and applie... more Tech. She has published 12 books and more than 130 journal articles on the theoretical and applied issues surrounding women and gender in science, health and technology.

Interactive Storytelling, 2018

Extended Abstracts of the 2021 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, 2021

Dino-Store is a persuasive game that was designed to use gamification way to communicate with peo... more Dino-Store is a persuasive game that was designed to use gamification way to communicate with people and raise awareness on COVID-19. The game's setting is grocery shopping and the mechanic indicates that how different protection strategies, such as wearing mask, keeping social distance can affect people's infection chances in the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper will break down how the game designed by merging concepts from persuasive game models and uncomfortable interaction theory to create an engaging, but stressful experience for the user. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → User centered design.

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

Statics, a foundational engineering course, introduces a unique approach to problem solving, whic... more Statics, a foundational engineering course, introduces a unique approach to problem solving, which is characterized by model-based reasoning. The major intended course outcome is for students to develop the ability to create and utilize free body diagrams as a mechanism for describing and constraining a problem. This ability to abstract and define an idealized problem from complex objects in the world or textual descriptions ratchets the engineer's ability to solve the problem. Sadly, however, students routinely leave this course having learned to "plug and chug" or jump to a mathematical equation without first defining the problem in a diagrammatic form that articulates the underlying principles. This can lead to serious problems in future courses as the fundamental approach to engineering problem solving has not been understood or embraced. As a foundational course, difficulties here can impact student academic confidence resulting in a diminished sense of self-efficacy that is particularly problematic when amplified by gender and under-represented (URM) minorities issues. And such faltering so early in the major can cause a student to leave engineering. While difficulties in the course arise for several reasons, our project seeks to address the problem of context. Our hypothesis is that women and minorities particularly, and students generally, are more likely to do well in statics when the problems are placed in the context of real world usefulness. An approach to teaching that effectively scaffolds students' efforts at model building and connects abstract principles/concepts to real world, every day applications will benefit all students while promoting diversity in engineering. Towards that end, we are developing InTEL (Interactive Toolkit for Engineering Education), a computer-based manipulable environment that supports teaching and learning in statics by mapping images from real-world environments to abstract diagrams for 2D and 3D equilibrium problems. With such digital technology, statics professors will be able to offer students important scaffolding for developing model-based reasoning by contextualizing abstract concepts and principles in lifelike models. Interacting with and manipulating these models will help students develop the kind of intuition that characterizes engineering reasoning and problem solving.

Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for TV and Online Video, 2016

New video platforms have enabled a wide variety of opportunities for rewatching video content. Fr... more New video platforms have enabled a wide variety of opportunities for rewatching video content. From streaming sites such as Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Now, to the proliferation of syndicated content on cable and satellite television, to new streaming devices for the home such as Roku and Apple TV, there are countless ways that people can rewatch movies and television shows. But what are people doing? We set out to understand current rewatching practices across a variety of devices and services. Through an online, open-ended survey to 150 diverse people and indepth, in-person interviews with 10 participants, we explore current rewatching behaviors. We quantify the types of content that are being rewatched as well as qualitatively explore the reasons and contexts behind rewatching. We conclude with key implications for the design of new video systems to promote rewatching behaviors.

Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for TV and Online Video, 2015

The merger of television and digital technology allows TV producers to author increasingly comple... more The merger of television and digital technology allows TV producers to author increasingly complex narratives, which pose new challenges for modern audiences. The prototype presented here is targeted at viewers of HBO's Game of Thrones and utilizes manipulatable, tightly synchronized spatial visualizations to concretize complex character relationships. A preliminary user study was conducted, utilizing the less tightly synchronized, nondiagramatic HBO Go application as an experimental control. Results show that users were able to more accurately identify character relationships after watching segments of the TV drama with the companion app prototype.

Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction - TEI '13, 2013

Don't Open That Door" is a gesture-based interactive narrative project set in the universe of the... more Don't Open That Door" is a gesture-based interactive narrative project set in the universe of the TV show Supernatural. The project leverages expectations of the horror genre and fan knowledge of the show to elicit expressive interactions and provide satisfying dramatic responses within a seamless scenario in order to create dramatic agency for the interactor. We use verbal, audiovisual, reactive, and mimetic techniques to script the interactor. From our research, design process, and user observations, we gain insight in to designing for dramatic agency and managing user expectations in gesture-based interactive systems.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011

This paper proposes that we think of traditional story patterns as an available abstraction techn... more This paper proposes that we think of traditional story patterns as an available abstraction technology, containing strategies of parameterization and encapsulation that could be useful for creating digital narratives with meaningful variation of story elements. An example domain of a woman with two or more potential sexual/romantic partners is used to illustrate how such an approach could leverage the dramatic compression of narrative traditions to identify meaningful variations, in order to support coherent composition by authors and increase dramatic agency for interactors.

Computer, 2006

Game production programs often include internships within the major game studios, sometimes even ... more Game production programs often include internships within the major game studios, sometimes even substituting multisemester work experience for class time. These close ties with industry provide students with valuable opportunities for postgraduation employment and game companies with a source of new employees who are immediately productive. But if the fit is too narrow and the program too shortsighted in serving the immediate hiring needs, its graduates might find their skills losing value when the needs of the industry shift in response to new technologies. Game studies programs, on the other hand, fall into the domain of academic researchers with PhDs in the humanities and social sciences. Oriented away from commercial values, these offerings emphasize fundamental questions of human experience and methodologies that provide critical and historical perspective on current cultural trends. Like American studies, film studies, women's studies, and Afro-American studies, the name game studies provides an interdisciplinary umbrella for an emerging field that emphasizes study over the disciplinary approach. Game studies provides a productive direction for research, but it can be a risky choice for students because graduates might lack both the skills that make them employable by industry and the disciplinary legitimacy that would prepare them for academic careers in more traditional departments. However, the increasing Although many universities focus their digital media curricula on game production and game studies, Georgia Tech defines a third approach that integrates technical and cultural knowledge by emphasizing research into the expressive potential of games.

Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology - ACE '11, 2011

ABSTRACT Using the iPad as a substitute for the remote control, and the Google TV platform as a m... more ABSTRACT Using the iPad as a substitute for the remote control, and the Google TV platform as a model for a convergence information environment, StoryLines presents a timeline-based method of navigating news and episodic television in the context of rich archival resources. This approach allows us to present individual threads within a multisequential story environment and to demonstrate the sense-making value of a filtered multisequential timeline presentation.

PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality

The Pickrick Protests is a project exploring the use of Augmented Reality (AR) to recreate a sequ... more The Pickrick Protests is a project exploring the use of Augmented Reality (AR) to recreate a sequence of Civil Rights--era incidents that occurred at the Pickrick restaurant, in Atlanta, over a period of 8 months in 1964–1965. This project gives a connected and chronological narrative of the historic events to form a cohesive experience, with AR projections of computer graphic depictions of the 1960s buildings, and events on the site where they happened. The objective of this project is to make the history of the Civil Rights Movement visible by privileging the perspective of the African Americans who fought for equality. This paper focuses on introducing the narrative design for this location-based AR application (Bowman et al., 1998). We will discuss our approach to creating a meaningful narrative within the technical affordances and environmental constraints of the AR medium and the specific location. The design challenges posed by this project were how to merge the virtual conte...

Interactive Storytelling, 2020

Statics, a foundational engineering course, introduces a unique approach to problem solving, whic... more Statics, a foundational engineering course, introduces a unique approach to problem solving, which is characterized by model-based reasoning. The major intended course outcome is for students to develop the ability to create and utilize free-body diagrams as a mechanism for describing and constraining a problem. This ability to abstract and define an idealized problem from complex objects in the world or textual descriptions ratchets the engineer's ability to solve the problem. Sadly, however, students routinely leave this course having learned to "plug and chug" or jump to a mathematical equation without first defining the problem in a diagrammatic form that articulates the underlying principles. This can lead to serious problems in future courses as the fundamental approach to engineering problem solving has not been understood or embraced. As a foundational course, difficulties here can impact student academic confidence resulting in a diminished sense of self-effic...

Interactive Storytelling, 2020

Extended Abstracts of the 2021 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, 2021

Dino-Store is a persuasive game that was designed to use gamification way to communicate with peo... more Dino-Store is a persuasive game that was designed to use gamification way to communicate with people and raise awareness on COVID-19. The game's setting is grocery shopping and the mechanic indicates that how different protection strategies, such as wearing mask, keeping social distance can affect people's infection chances in the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper will break down how the game designed by merging concepts from persuasive game models and uncomfortable interaction theory to create an engaging, but stressful experience for the user. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → User centered design.

Statics, a foundational engineering course, introduces a unique approach to problem solving, whic... more Statics, a foundational engineering course, introduces a unique approach to problem solving, which is characterized by model-based reasoning. The major intended course outcome is for students to develop the ability to create and utilize free body diagrams as a mechanism for describing and constraining a problem. This ability to abstract and define an idealized problem from complex objects in the world or textual descriptions ratchets the engineer's ability to solve the problem. Sadly, however, students routinely leave this course having learned to "plug and chug" or jump to a mathematical equation without first defining the problem in a diagrammatic form that articulates the underlying principles. This can lead to serious problems in future courses as the fundamental approach to engineering problem solving has not been understood or embraced. As a foundational course, difficulties here can impact student academic confidence resulting in a diminished sense of self-effic...

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

Her research focuses on understanding learning in interdisciplines towards designing educational ... more Her research focuses on understanding learning in interdisciplines towards designing educational environments that develop integrative problem solving.

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

Tech. She has published 12 books and more than 130 journal articles on the theoretical and applie... more Tech. She has published 12 books and more than 130 journal articles on the theoretical and applied issues surrounding women and gender in science, health and technology.

Interactive Storytelling, 2018

Extended Abstracts of the 2021 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, 2021

Dino-Store is a persuasive game that was designed to use gamification way to communicate with peo... more Dino-Store is a persuasive game that was designed to use gamification way to communicate with people and raise awareness on COVID-19. The game's setting is grocery shopping and the mechanic indicates that how different protection strategies, such as wearing mask, keeping social distance can affect people's infection chances in the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper will break down how the game designed by merging concepts from persuasive game models and uncomfortable interaction theory to create an engaging, but stressful experience for the user. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → User centered design.

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings

Statics, a foundational engineering course, introduces a unique approach to problem solving, whic... more Statics, a foundational engineering course, introduces a unique approach to problem solving, which is characterized by model-based reasoning. The major intended course outcome is for students to develop the ability to create and utilize free body diagrams as a mechanism for describing and constraining a problem. This ability to abstract and define an idealized problem from complex objects in the world or textual descriptions ratchets the engineer's ability to solve the problem. Sadly, however, students routinely leave this course having learned to "plug and chug" or jump to a mathematical equation without first defining the problem in a diagrammatic form that articulates the underlying principles. This can lead to serious problems in future courses as the fundamental approach to engineering problem solving has not been understood or embraced. As a foundational course, difficulties here can impact student academic confidence resulting in a diminished sense of self-efficacy that is particularly problematic when amplified by gender and under-represented (URM) minorities issues. And such faltering so early in the major can cause a student to leave engineering. While difficulties in the course arise for several reasons, our project seeks to address the problem of context. Our hypothesis is that women and minorities particularly, and students generally, are more likely to do well in statics when the problems are placed in the context of real world usefulness. An approach to teaching that effectively scaffolds students' efforts at model building and connects abstract principles/concepts to real world, every day applications will benefit all students while promoting diversity in engineering. Towards that end, we are developing InTEL (Interactive Toolkit for Engineering Education), a computer-based manipulable environment that supports teaching and learning in statics by mapping images from real-world environments to abstract diagrams for 2D and 3D equilibrium problems. With such digital technology, statics professors will be able to offer students important scaffolding for developing model-based reasoning by contextualizing abstract concepts and principles in lifelike models. Interacting with and manipulating these models will help students develop the kind of intuition that characterizes engineering reasoning and problem solving.

Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for TV and Online Video, 2016

New video platforms have enabled a wide variety of opportunities for rewatching video content. Fr... more New video platforms have enabled a wide variety of opportunities for rewatching video content. From streaming sites such as Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Now, to the proliferation of syndicated content on cable and satellite television, to new streaming devices for the home such as Roku and Apple TV, there are countless ways that people can rewatch movies and television shows. But what are people doing? We set out to understand current rewatching practices across a variety of devices and services. Through an online, open-ended survey to 150 diverse people and indepth, in-person interviews with 10 participants, we explore current rewatching behaviors. We quantify the types of content that are being rewatched as well as qualitatively explore the reasons and contexts behind rewatching. We conclude with key implications for the design of new video systems to promote rewatching behaviors.

Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for TV and Online Video, 2015

The merger of television and digital technology allows TV producers to author increasingly comple... more The merger of television and digital technology allows TV producers to author increasingly complex narratives, which pose new challenges for modern audiences. The prototype presented here is targeted at viewers of HBO's Game of Thrones and utilizes manipulatable, tightly synchronized spatial visualizations to concretize complex character relationships. A preliminary user study was conducted, utilizing the less tightly synchronized, nondiagramatic HBO Go application as an experimental control. Results show that users were able to more accurately identify character relationships after watching segments of the TV drama with the companion app prototype.

Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction - TEI '13, 2013

Don't Open That Door" is a gesture-based interactive narrative project set in the universe of the... more Don't Open That Door" is a gesture-based interactive narrative project set in the universe of the TV show Supernatural. The project leverages expectations of the horror genre and fan knowledge of the show to elicit expressive interactions and provide satisfying dramatic responses within a seamless scenario in order to create dramatic agency for the interactor. We use verbal, audiovisual, reactive, and mimetic techniques to script the interactor. From our research, design process, and user observations, we gain insight in to designing for dramatic agency and managing user expectations in gesture-based interactive systems.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011

This paper proposes that we think of traditional story patterns as an available abstraction techn... more This paper proposes that we think of traditional story patterns as an available abstraction technology, containing strategies of parameterization and encapsulation that could be useful for creating digital narratives with meaningful variation of story elements. An example domain of a woman with two or more potential sexual/romantic partners is used to illustrate how such an approach could leverage the dramatic compression of narrative traditions to identify meaningful variations, in order to support coherent composition by authors and increase dramatic agency for interactors.

Computer, 2006

Game production programs often include internships within the major game studios, sometimes even ... more Game production programs often include internships within the major game studios, sometimes even substituting multisemester work experience for class time. These close ties with industry provide students with valuable opportunities for postgraduation employment and game companies with a source of new employees who are immediately productive. But if the fit is too narrow and the program too shortsighted in serving the immediate hiring needs, its graduates might find their skills losing value when the needs of the industry shift in response to new technologies. Game studies programs, on the other hand, fall into the domain of academic researchers with PhDs in the humanities and social sciences. Oriented away from commercial values, these offerings emphasize fundamental questions of human experience and methodologies that provide critical and historical perspective on current cultural trends. Like American studies, film studies, women's studies, and Afro-American studies, the name game studies provides an interdisciplinary umbrella for an emerging field that emphasizes study over the disciplinary approach. Game studies provides a productive direction for research, but it can be a risky choice for students because graduates might lack both the skills that make them employable by industry and the disciplinary legitimacy that would prepare them for academic careers in more traditional departments. However, the increasing Although many universities focus their digital media curricula on game production and game studies, Georgia Tech defines a third approach that integrates technical and cultural knowledge by emphasizing research into the expressive potential of games.

Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology - ACE '11, 2011

ABSTRACT Using the iPad as a substitute for the remote control, and the Google TV platform as a m... more ABSTRACT Using the iPad as a substitute for the remote control, and the Google TV platform as a model for a convergence information environment, StoryLines presents a timeline-based method of navigating news and episodic television in the context of rich archival resources. This approach allows us to present individual threads within a multisequential story environment and to demonstrate the sense-making value of a filtered multisequential timeline presentation.