Medium as frame: comparing mobile audio and video interactions in informal learning contexts

Abstract

Concept-driven interaction design opens new pathways for research of information and communication technologies ICTs in educational contexts, between the particulars of a case study and the abstractions of theory. Explorative research in this project tested foundational theoretical ideas, such as medium specificity, through concrete designs in an authentic setting. During these separate but similar procedures, conducted a year apart, ordinary users were given representative tasks on mobile devices in order to examine the levels of involvement, social facilitation, and satisfaction generated by differing media forms within the mobile delivery system. From this perspective, direct comparisons could be made, for example, between audio and video forms. Enabling such comparisons has grown in importance with the advent of mobile and other convergent technologies that blend mediums to bring together media organisms to comingle. In the case of a smartphone, for example, mobile media designers now can choose which medium text, audio, video, animation, etc. they want to use within their master medium, which adds to the complexity of the design endeavour but also to the potential for new integrated and interactive forms to emerge as well as for more mindful context-tailored solutions.