Storytelling & Conversation to Improve the Fun Factor in Software Applications

This chapter describes the impact of conversation and storytelling as short and medium period factors of user satisfaction, to be used in software applications. The author recommends an orientation of the user interface towards human needs to gain a short-period cycle of user satisfaction. This is achieved in regard to assistance and delegation with a conversational interaction metaphor, described as an explicit and symbolic top-down approach. For the medium-period satisfaction of the user, the author suggests the use of humanlike information structures like stories to access information in a way that is easily understandable for the user. The author suggests a morphological story engine as prototyped within the Geist project. The prototype implementation shows two general points:First, the usage of literary approaches to interactive storytelling is generally possible. Suspense can be increased by using story models drawn from literary theory. Second, to involve the user in a dramatic story, one has to use humanlike interaction metaphors, like conversation, to focus the human on the story progress, rather than on the interface.