The use of narrativity in interactive applications is far from something simple. And here we are not dealing with the intrinsic complexities of a script writing, but distinct narrative methods that could even disregard the use of scripts all along. This directly reflects the simple fact that a narrative is an imposed condition to human comprehension, once human cognitive processes narrativize the world in order to grasp it. One could say that consciousness operates in digestive mode. Lending the words from the cognitive scientist John Searle, “At some level of description, brain processes are syntactical” *

But back to interfaces, if we attain ourselves to the sort of applications that present a virtual space with actions and possible combinations between its elements, we will find two completely distinct kinds of narratives: The Procedural and the Diegetic one. Worth noting that there is no hierarchization between both, meaning, one does not precede the other. Further, for those with some acquaintance with linguistics, it is possible to trace parallels between syntactics and semantics, or even syntagma and paradigm.

For starters, it is highly relevant to bear in mind that instrumental applications, such as apps in your smartphone, websites, operations systems, amongst others ‘interfacing systems’, are narrative systems that can be of the procedural as well as the diegetic type. Procedural when they organize information as a rendering of a series of prior choices (or actions), such as in Spotify’s Home screen, where your past behavior feeds algorithmic elements that render a personalized experience. A rather contemporary example is the use of Artificial Intelligence, more specifically Machine Learning, to layout a screen of a whole functionality. It is mandatory that Experience Designers stay in tune with GPT-3 in this regard. In sum, the assembling of an interface under any circumstance whose disposed elements depend on, or — are subject to — combinatory factors.

On the other hand, these processes are Diegetic when the access to information is not given through combinatory rendering, but as a guided process, curated, orchestrated by an UX team with use of widely known tools and techniques, such as User Journeys, Service Blueprints, or in a deeper level Information Architecture.

Experience designers that are not foreseeing such factors at this stage in contemporary history, are bound to face difficulties implementing holistic experience designs pretty soon. Guided journeys will soon stop predicting rigid interfaces, and will move towards predicting possible outcomes.

Procedural Narrativity

It is quite common nowadays to hear people using the term ‘procedural’ in game-related conversations, in an attempt to exemplify the concept that there is a relation between the action of the player and possible outcomes in the game.

The group of actions/verbs that a given interactive application provides, directly relates to the amount of outcomes a game has as a programmed system. Basically, if the action alters the general sense of the story or the visual state of a group of elements within the game or application, then, we are faced with procedural mechanics.

Extreme examples of the procedural concept would be games like No Man’s Sky, which propose that the combinatorics of its elements are so wide that entire worlds, with ecosystems and natural rules, could be procedurally created through practically infinite combinations of some basic principles. If you travel to another planet, you will find whole new species of animals, as well as a whole simulated ecosystem created procedurally. They are states generated in response to a previous set of actions and it is only rendered as the user reaches a certain point. Epistemically we could say that under this rule nothing exists if it is not observed. On demand graphics generation is not new though, Ray Tracing has a similar principle, and some other experimentations with AI in game graphics resound the idea.

The case is extreme because No Man’s Sky makes the ‘procedural’ the central focus of its plot, that is, there is no story to be followed, no plot, no curatorship. There is the generation of worlds, spaces, fauna and flora as an accidental narrative element. In this configuration, acting itself is telling the story, a story that is created as an intrinsic dependence on the previous action; you are/make your story.

In usability, or in the design of applications/products — from the perspective of experience — very little has been elaborated on tool applications that can provide a procedural narrative.

Does this mean that Experience Design will end? No. It only needs to be componentized.

Procedural Experience design

The narrative process that is based on pure procedural methods faces insurmountable barriers — both technical and epistemological. This distances the actualization of practical auto-generated applications. In the realm of games, it is ‘easier’ to use procedural as it does not usually intermingle with offline happenings, for instance, an e-commerce app is a digital filter that interfaces actual and physical products that demand the right specifications in order to be properly delivered; a game ends in itself.

The future field of Procedural Experience design however, demands the power of setting up components, possibilities and constraints within a solid framework and a powerful design system.

The current technological threshold is the fact that because the outputs are combinatorial, and combinatorics are exponential, it is a matter of time for a procedural system to lose integrity and congruence. The number of possible combinations can be immense, the amount of new interfaces assembled for specific purposes is theoretically infinite, and what defines a system as such is that unpredictability must be considered an error. A system is the automation of processes that must start and stop at desirable states.

What would a procedural application look like after all? Well, any application that, from a set of information inserted about the condition of a person’s life, their schedules, rhythms, tastes and needs, could provide a completely adapted interface, might represent the first steps towards this outcome.

How?

• Identifying that the user is outdoors, on a sunny day: changes the interface to promote better visibility.
• A Fintech that identifies that the user is in a store: find and propose discounts and suitable payment methods by reorganizing the app.
• A transport application such as Waze that identifies that there is use of microphone available, and allows full use by voice command.
• Reception apps that identify a visitor’s demand through natural language, for instance, whether a tourist, a restaurant visitor, or a guest, and provide interfaces created by combination of components to solve any situation.
• Adaptive learning platforms that ‘understand’ the student’s wills and crafts user-specific content, goals, levels, and even fine-tunes accessibility aspects.

There are some rare efforts on operational systems, with features like geofancing that turn cell phone functions on and off when the user arrives at work or home. Also, iOS in Driving Mode, which disables some functions for security based on behavior, such as notifications.

Diegetic Narrativity

On the other hand, diegetics is a concept originated from literature — and only much later adapted to cinema — and comprises the construction of a fictional universe (game or simulation) based on the need for providing congruence through a narrative. It is a flow or continuity of interrelated elements in the proposed aesthetic context. In this sense, it is similar to the user’s individual journey of the procedural method in the narrative’s dependence to establish a state or identity, but it occurs in reverse;

In Diegetic mechanics, the action depends on the narrative, while in Procedural mechanics, the narrative depends on the action.

What we have in systems under this configuration is a closed universe, with signs (symbols) and rules (codes), in relationships that structure their inner language, while these relationships, in the first place, are distinguished from the reality of the one that accompanies the story (spectator, reader, player) in terms of autonomy and, secondly, they have a congruence derived from the temporal sequencing of the elements themselves, that is, they are syntagmatically related (linearly) without accessing the “whole” of the context in a paradigm (at once).

UX needs to learn from games to implement experiences based on procedural narrativity. If we return to interactive games, the narration is given by the spatial and temporal disposition with which the elements that make up the general plan of the plot are presented, gradually, linearly, each one resignifying all the previous ones by juxtaposition, and even so, adding for the construction of a ‘something bigger’. It is true that the combination of elements is exponential, but it is enough for us to understand that the rules for these combinations to occur are always grounded on human deliberations. It is also essential to consider that, if rules are human, as they cannot be dynamized by the automation of programming as simple combinations, they necessarily reflect cultural perspectives. Consider experience as the congruence of a system.

Journeys may lend space to Scenarios

The future role of Experience Designers in a Procedural technological environment is challenging. Journeys may lend space to Scenarios, mockups may have to contemplate dynamic assembling of outcomes, newer software engines may be needed to provide tools for Experience Designers to input components, rules and constraints instead of whole png webpages.

The role of UI design can, to a certain extent, tend towards a modular thinking, and Design Systems will provide curatorship and integrity. Experience Designers will not define the path, but give space to certain potential manifestations.

It is very common that in the creation of user journeys, which are nothing more than diegetic narratives, a number of possible achievements are foreseen and carefully designed. Due to the real number of possible combinations, this model is quite limiting, generating a dozen established paths, but not very adaptable ones.

From the forms of narrativity that current technology allows us, we are left with the provocation that perhaps we should embrace the procedural in the creation of applications, ensuring a basis (paradigm) from which the user’s action establishes new conditions, and start to accept that UXrs are not the owners of the journeys per se, but the owners of the solutions instead. There will be states of an application that can be unique to each user, and it would no longer be absurd if we consider the level at which games already, so well, manage to apply this concept.

*The Rediscovery of the Mind (1992) MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England, p.74