Reconciling History: Designing an Interactive Companion for the Television Docudrama
Design of an interactive second screen companion that compares the television docudrama series, American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson with interviews and archived media of that time period (television broadcasts, print, etc.)
Masters' project includes designing the UI of the companion app, collecting media, and interviewing several potential users to test usability of the prototype. Also visit the documentation website for more detailed information and check out the prototype.
“Docudrama always offers an interpretation, and no more.”
Alan Rosenthal, Writing Docudramas: Dramatizing Reality for Film and TV
Print, video, and interviews could call out key scenes in a fact-checking companion, and it would allow users to compare moments where reality and fiction meet.
Low Fidelity Iterations
Optimization model: filtering for best match
Users choose the episode first; then begin choosing people and themes to begin filtering.
User can open the filtered out clip and compare with the paired archival clip
Mid Fidelity Iterations
Added context to the interface – labeling to the categories “Important People” and “Themes” and sets of clips
Clips scroll in a “filmstrip”
Added bio and theme summaries for each category
Dedicated clip pages and tagging of clips
High Fidelity Iterations
Grid with labels on thumbnails
Color palette simplified
Overlays added to allow more information
Inline Window feature added for external links
Design Questions and Conclusions
More apt to explore narrative through characters or themes? All of the users had different ways of interacting with the companion. Some even began by going through the clips rather than categories.
Does cross referencing diverse media allow for more immersion into the series and actual trial itself? Yes! Most of the testers of the high fidelity prototype made connections that they didn’t notice before when watching the show.
Would a companion change the user’s opinion on the case? The companion didn’t seem to strongly change minds, but confirm or provide more information that supported their stance on the people and the case.