TRAINing

One of my aspirations is to apply the same sort of creativity that goes into the look, feel and operation of computer games to business applications.  Some of the benefits of doing this are presenting information in a more efficient manner (3D and pictures provides the potential of presenting more information), minimizing training and making it more enjoyable.

This weekend an article in the New York Times Art and Entertainment section reviewed the game, Dead Space: Extraction, for the Nintendo Wii. Note - warning mature themes! What makes this game somewhat unique is that it is a "rail" game.  In rail games the game moves you, just as if you were in some invisible rail car, and your tasks are shooting and gathering objects.  This lack of concern for motion has its price - once you have passed something you can't go back, it is inherently a serial presentation.

When I read this I thought that perhaps we might be able to use this approach for work flow, especially work flow that builds on previous steps.  Although we might not have control of speed we may have the ability to slow or momentarily pause (an emergency "brake") the progression.  Work flow then becomes a natural progression rather than an annoying stream of menus and programs.  I realize this is analogous to frames and scripts from the AI literature, but perhaps we could push the rails analogy and actually have us moving by the steps, adding information as we cruise by.  A perspective button could provide a perspective on what is left in the path.

So what do you think, are their business applications that would benefit by placing users on "rails" and guiding through the workflow?  I would be interested in your thoughts on this and also whether rail games are compelling as a game genera - I like them because as I get older it is one less thing to do.  Later!

Comments

[David Proctor]

Prof. Vesonder,
In response to your TRAINing post, It seems that what you are describing is much like the function of a conveyor belt? In a conventional conveyor belt, a person is standing still as the belt moves by them and they perform a task or material is moved along a production line to another stage of the process. One of the classic moments of TV comedy is the famous Lucille Ball show scene with the chocolate packaging conveyor line. I have also recently heard of a conveyor system in the reverse wherein the production worker is moving along conveyor belt like apparatus and performing a task to a larger set of material. This application was in a agricultural product line for growing, washing, cleaning and inpecting some fresh produce. I think with the addition of many new technologies for perception and sensing, conveyor lines could be greatly improved today to vary the speed depending on the productivity and accuracy of the worker involved in the process. For example, good sensing equipment today could have perceived the problem Lucille Ball was having in keeping up with packaging the chocolates. The scene would not have been as funny, but in real life, the production run would not have been as problematic! Would you agree?

[Dennis D. Scott]

Prof. Vesonder,

I am not sure if I understand this post. Based off what i read with respect to workflow - is there any post of this process that can cause a potential "bottleneck"? If so what would be the result of that, frustration and/or being turned off by potentially be held up in a step in the process? I do agree with David in the fact that varying the speed depending on the productivity and accuracy of the work could be greatly improved in regards to conveyer belts.

Woud a more interactive approach work better?