I copy and pasted this photo from google images, boooooo

The Proposal

The Thought Process

I love literature. It's awesome. I think that if everyone took the time to read and consume quality literature it would have major impact on the current state of our world. There is some kind of power intrinsic to literature that allows the author to connect with and communicate with the reader on a very very human level. Through their works they are able to convey meaning and value to the consumers of their creations possibly effecting, challenging, influencing, and inspiring those people. That being said, literature doesn't actually do anything.... At least not from a technical stand point. I spent the preceding class to this diving into the power of words, but when we look at literature through a more literal and technical lens it doesn't provide any function. My favorite Brandon Sanderson book can't process a spreadsheet, or create a project, or compute mathematical equations for you. It isn't a tool. 

    

When it comes to computer science though, everything is about tools. What tool would fit best here, what tools can I leverage, what tools can I make, tools tools tools.... The only real deviation from this is game development. In general computer science is all about making the computer do something, rarely is it to just make something that exists. As I ponder these two disciplines and their natures, tool vs not tool I wonder what could be gained from a development that tries to mix the relational and connective value of creative literature with the efficient and technical practicality of software development. I'm going to refer to this mixing of disciplines as immersion or immersiveness for now, because I can't think of something more fitting.

What I Want to Do

I want to first observe the different aspects of literature and computer science. How do authors convey meaning? What strategies and tools do they employ? What alternative mediums exist? I want to take these observations and compare them directly with a number of different types of websites and programs. Where do they differ? Where is there similarities? I want to find examples where there are lots of similarities. Instances where developers tools do convey some kind of value and meaning just through its mere existence, not just the utility of the tool. I want to dive into this space and just explore it a bit. Is there a method to making these more immersive and human feeling tools? Is it entirely subjective? What other questions will I run into?

Things to note:

- I am not trying to evaluate the quality of these programs/tools. Maybe the website functionality sucks, maybe not. That's not really what I am trying to determine, but it might still be important to my investigation. Did the developer fail in integration? Is the immersion getting in the way of the functionality?

- This probably all very subjective and nebulous, but that is also the nature of most good literature so that's okay with me

- This really only works one way, due to the more sand-boxy and trail-blazing nature of software development vs the well established and (mostly (I know it's more nuanced than that)) static styles of literature. 

The Plan

DATA GATHERING - This project is going to involve a lot of just gathering data. Recording my observations and thoughts following program and literary explorations. I should probably rely on not only my own thoughts and opinions but include others in this process as well. 

COMPARISON - I want to find a few example of programs that do this immersion really well. Full of humanness, storytelling, and relatability. And a few examples that are very... computer sciencey, efficient, sterile, technical, yada yada yada. I want to compare these programs.

DH EXPERTS - I assume I will talk to one of my English professors for my internal interview. I still need to think about what I'm going to do for my external option

THE WORK - I want to use my research to identify certain components of design that make computer programs feel more human and immersive than what we normally come to expect from computer tools. I do need to think of some way that I want to process or use the results from this data to make or do something :/

DELIVERABLES - Documentation and reports of all my research and data gathering of course. What am I going to present? GOOD QUESTION IDK YET >.< Should I just make a representation of the data I gathered? Should I tell a story? Should I try to implement the design components that I find into a program? Idunnuhbruhhhh

The Future

This idea still feels very half-baked to me to be honest. As I'm working on it my hopes is that my objectives and the scope of the project will become more obvious to me as I do the work. I know kind of what I want to get out of this, but its really more of a feeling in my head rather than a specific idea. This project definitely needs to become more 'defined' at some point, hopefully soon.