Emergent Design: Bringing the Learner Close to the Experience

The creative process of design is at the foundation of serious game and simulation development. Using a systematic approach, the designer of serious simulations or games analyzes the best approach that would deliver an interactive learning experience; one that will harnesses growing forms of behavior, requiring both the learner and technology to engage in an open-ended cycle of productive feedback and exchange. According to Collins [1], “Beyond simply providing an on/off switch or a menu of options leading to ‘canned’ content, users should be able to interact intuitively with a system in ways that produce new information. Interacting with a system that produces emergent phenomena is what I am calling interactive emergence” (4th Annual Digital Arts Symposium: Neural Net{work}).