Meeting Monsters - How Interactivity Affects the User Experience in Digital Motion Picture Horror Stories

Abstract: As media over the last decade has become increasingly interactive, the user’s role as the previously passive observer has shifted to an active role playing its own part of the experience. The same development can be seen in storytelling, where traditional narrative techniques are often combined with modern technology in order to create a new level of immersion, aiming to provide the user with the feeling of “being there”. The aim of this study is to practically investigate interactive storytelling and see how different levels of interactivity affects the general user experience within the horror genre, and if there is a connection between interactivity and the feeling of immersion. In doing so, we hope to investigate how the use of interactivity can be further developed in order to increase the immersive storytelling experience. The study was conducted by having a number of test subjects view five horror stories produced like short horror films mixed with different interactive techniques and answer questions about their experience. Additionally, the participants’ heart rates were monitored during each session. The study revealed that the higher the level of interactivity, the less immersed the user felt, which contradicted the hypothesis that increased levels of interactivity would increase the feeling of immersion. Meanwhile, interactive elements were generally more enjoyed. From the results it could eventually be concluded that it is not the interactivity per se that has the potential to increase the immersive experience, but the ability to let the user interact without any perceived restrictions. In other words, for interactivity to not inhibit the feeling of immersion, it must befit the story and have natural implementations of the controls in order to not steal attention from the content.