Rethinking Remix Flow

Once upon a time, we expected that the primary use for remixing would be by a user who wanted to capture a remix and use it immediately. I think this case exists, but it's definitely not the only one. As a prelude to launching into rethinking how and where remix opportunities are presented in the interface, I've been considering our current hypothesized use cases.

Sparking Story Ideas

This is a goal we try to support in a lot of ways throughout the interface. But the prefab remixes are instant-gratification enough that they can tap into the same idea-generation patterns I saw years ago with the animations in the Storytelling Alice gallery. To do this, I think we want to select animations that are highly correlated with a character in the world (e.g. the big bad wolf's huff puff and blow) and perhaps also things that are frequently used early. Early use implies a need to track that. There are definitely kinds of animations that help to set a story direction and animations that enhance an existing story but are less helpful in setting a direction. These should be the animations that are available when the user opens the remix dialog.

Meeting Animation Needs

When users are working towards a specific story, they will sometimes want specific kinds of animations. This seems like the perfect opportunity for tag search over both remixes and worlds. We'll obviously need to be clear about setting expectations about prefab remixes or capturing a remix appropriately in making both available.

In thinking about both of the above, I'm leaning towards a two-tab design where the default is selected to spark ideas and search allows users to zero in on a particular type of action.

Sharing Cool Animations

In some ways, this is the biggest change. Early on our assumption was that users would primarily capture remixes in worlds they didn't author. But prefab remixes have the potential to create an incentive for users to capture remixes from their own worlds. And, there are two cases: 1) I've built a cool animation that isn't part of a story and 2) I've built a cool animation as part of a story. In the first case, I might not want to share the source world. In the second case, I probably do. It's entirely possible that case 1's could become case 2's given some time. So, we'll need some way to be able to link remixes back to source worlds, regardless of the order in which they are shared.

This might all be workable just by presenting an import and export in the toolbar. But, the next step is definitely some sketching.