Reflection on Anticipating Reader's Actions

Summarize the room you created

• So originally, I wasn’t sure of what type of room I wanted to create or what specific items should be in my room, but I knew that I wanted the room to lead to other rooms in sort of a mysterious, puzzle-like manner. As a result, I put a giant window and four doors in the room, one door for each corner of the room. Each door leads to a new area. Also, each pane in the window has the same design as the overall room itself, so when you look through the window pane, you see another room just like the one you’re currently in.

What you thought people would do first, and what they actually ended up wanting to do first.

• Honestly, the drawing of the room I created is pretty poor and doesn’t really do the concept of my room justice, so when I found out that people were going to be looking at it, I thought the first thing they would do would be quit the game. To my surprise, most people that looked at my room said that they would look through the window, but there were a few people that said they would either just stare at the room or spin in a circle because they were confused.

What did you think of their actions? Had you anticipated any?

• I anticipated the actions of the people that looked at my room because I knew that if I were in their position, I would commit the same actions.

If this room was the starting location in a video game, what kind of game would it be? (3D Exploration? Point and Click?) Would it be a starting point or would the whole story experience take place here? What would you want people to be able to do?

If this room was the starting location in a video game, then I would want the game to be a first person, 3D, adventure game that promotes exploration.

• This room would definitely be a starting point for the game instead of the whole story because I would want people to go through each door and window pane experiencing different elements of the story of the video game as they progressed from one door and/or window pane to the next.

How could you encourage people to take the actions you want them to take and discourage them from taking actions that may only frustrate them or not be worth programming?

• I think people would be more inclined to take the actions I wanted them to take if I made it more obvious that the doors were actually doors, and if I included some arrows or numbers above the doors and window panes. In this regard, I think the concept of my room would’ve been understood much better if I had written a description of my room instead of drawn my room since I’m able to paint a picture with my words better than I can with my drawing ability.

This is a picture of the room I created