Searching in a Playful Manner

Abstract

Search having become the dominant metaphor for information-oriented web usage and being commonly projected on other domains of human-computer interaction (HCI), still seems to be a largely undervalued topic in the field of user experience in general and human-computer-interaction design towards joy-of-use in particular. Therefore, the proposed search UI ‘DISCO’ aims not only at demonstrating how search can be embedded in an integrated and app-like environment, in which information objects can be leveraged considerably across various functional areas. The purpose of DISCO is to showcase how this kind of interoperability on the level of UI can occur in a playful manner. Therefore, given the prominent role of search functionality as part of computer-mediated artifacts, DISCO bears the promise to serve as an ideal for how design efforts within EUD can be inspired, resulting in end user applications which not only provide rich functionality for retrieving and manipulating information but which are also fun to use and embody aesthetic qualities.