Linking Assignment

 

Assignment 1: What’s in My Bag?

Tarana’s entry shows how the contents of a bag function as texts that communicate one’s identity, literacy, and participation in the world around them. Her materials, like manuals, charts, flight computers and regulatory documents, demonstrate her position in the highly structured culture of aviation. I was drawn to this because of the unique nature of her bag and how differently I felt about it compared to the contents of my own bag. Tarana’s reflection emphasizes responsibility and a professional identity, with the bag serving as a symbolic archive of their skills, expectations, and the literacy required to participate in such a regulated, technical environment. By comparison to Tarana’s bag, my bag shows how much of my identity is shaped by digital communication, sensory regulation and aesthetics. My mirror, lipstick, headphones and fan show that my cultural negotiations involve managing noise, heat, social interactions and how I present myself to others.

Assignment 3: Voice to Text 

Michael’s speech-to-text activity reflects on how drastically oral communication can change when it is captured in writing. The unedited transcript seems chaotic and unstructured, yet it remains coherent as spoken language. It definitely shows how oral storytelling depends on tone, rhythm, and pauses, elements that speech-to-text technology struggles to represent. I appreciated Michael’s note that clearer, scripted speech would likely have produced a cleaner transcript, but would’ve come at the cost of authenticity. It suggests a tension between natural voice and textual legibility that raises questions about how digital tools mediate our identity and self-expression.

Assignment 5: Twine Task

Jonathan Dueck’s twine game was fun and reminded me of my own game, which also featured a bedroom hub. I appreciate that he uploaded his game to itch.io, making it easier to play, since I wasn’t able to play most of the other students’ games when they uploaded them.  As someone who also did a “bedroom-hub” style game, I can recognize the time that likely went into creating it. I think it’s fantastic that it was inspired by his kids’ experiences getting ready in the morning, and the time count for each task, paired with the pressure of needing to get everything done in time to leave, felt immersive. The first time I played the game, I got the “neutral ending,” which has a little line about forgetting something important. So I replayed this time, trying to be a bit more thorough and got the perfect ending. I do appreciate that the game had some replayability in this sense. The preparedness meter and the time-passing mechanic were also particularly impressive implementations, and I respect the effort Jonathon put into this little story.

 

Assignment 6: An Emoji Story

I struggled to interpret most people’s emoji stories, and I’m not sure whether it’s because I haven’t watched enough media or because I wasn’t associating the symbols with characters. Of the two I quickly recognized, the first was Jonathan Dueck’s as “The Bad Guys 2” due to the simple symbolism of the animal characters, and Adrianne’s due to the title translation of “Squid Game” to a squid and game controller emoji, which is pretty straightforward. I like how detailed Adrianne got in translating the general plot into emojis, and once I knew what media it was, I could make out which plot points each emoji pointed to specifically. I like the note in her reflection about how this assignment felt like a reversal of what Bolter discusses when he talks about how we imagine details that aren’t on the page when we read a story, with the emoji assignment being a condensation of complex narrative elements into simple symbols. I also chose to try to translate the plot of the media I chose into multiple lines of emoji’s, which is why I was drawn to Adrianne’s entry. I found it particularly difficult to translate plot lines and I wasn’t really confident that anybody would be able to discern the plot at all from my symbolic interpretation of it. When I first skimmed Adrianne’s assignment, I didn’t understand what any of the emojis were trying to depict until I realized the title, and then I was able to connect the emojis to the plot. It makes me think about how there is a need for knowledge and context when interpreting language and I find it interesting how this translates into emoji-speak too.

Assignment 7: Mode-Bending

I really liked how Erica totally elevated the “What’s in My Bag” assignment by expanding on its visual nature and combining it with interactive and auditory elements, rather than translating it into an entirely different medium. I personally love interactivity, and I thought the auditory elements were a super fun touch that helped me better understand what a day in Erica’s life might look and sound like. For my assignment, I created a narrated video tour of my desktop, a sort of “digital bag” that I felt best represented me. Still, it was definitely a total shift from the initial assignment. My entry has no user interaction beyond watching and reading the video, making it a purely visual and auditory experience. Erica’s use of Genially to add visual pop-ups of certain items when clicked on and corresponding audio cues to represent those items as well of as brief textual descriptions of each item serves as an entertaining combination of modes that allows for a more comprehensive story to be told through the contents of her bag. I also appreciate how she made it fun for the user, rather than it just feeling like reading another student’s assignment.

 

Assignment 10: Attention Economy

Manomet’s entry with User Inyerface shows how frustration, confusion and misdirection are often carefully constructed elements meant to disorient users. Examples such as misleading buttons, unreadable text, contradictory instructions, and time pressure show how user interface design can strategically undermine a user’s confidence and prompt them to take actions they didn’t intend. By connecting these tactics to Brignull’s concept of dark pattern, I like how the reflection makes it clear that usability is not a neutral value but can be used to produce urgency, stress and compliance. Manomet’s realization that the game “could not be finished” serves as a metaphor for platforms engineered to keep users trapped in cycles of effort and reaction. I really respect how they identify their shifting emotional state throughout the activity and how they connect the micro-frustrations of the game to the macro-structures of modern digital life, from attention economies, behavioural nudging and algorithmic systems designed to prey on psychological vulnerabilities. While I found it annoying but not impossible to navigate, I was drawn to Manomet’s entry due to the fact that they decided not to continue with the task due to, in my opinion, very valid reasons.