A Web-based Interaction Design Tool: Pattern Language Toolkit

Interactive installation and new media are new developing areas with great potential in art and design. In these new art domains, artists use various types of media through different ways of interactions to create and present their artworks. However, due to the multimedia and cross domain features of this type of art, traditional design principles and tools may not cover the theoretical and practical needs of the artists in this domain. In this research we attempt to create a new design guideline aiming for interactive installation and new media art design. We found that the pattern language, proposed by Alexander in 1977, can perfectly fit the requirements of these new forms of art design. In order to illustrate how to apply the pattern language to interactive installation design, we have developed a set of patterns from the analysis of several related artworks and articles in the literature. We have developed a Web-based visualization system, in which one can share and communicate their ideas and experience with other experts during artwork design through the common language patterns. This system allows the users to clarify and consolidate their ideas by decomposing them into pieces of related patterns that can be re-built to form a more constructive pattern diagram. Moreover, this tool can also be used to stimulate the imagination of user through related works of similar pattern. In a preliminary evaluation of our system, we have interviewed three artists in this area about the feedback of using this system and their responses are rather positive. We believe that this type of tool utilizing pattern language can effectively help the artists realize their ideas in interactive installation and new media art designs.