Progress?

So far, we haven't found a professional developer/designer able to help us get started on the digital platform - one or potential guys have either not had the time right now, or are unsure of the scale of the project. Funding then becomes a factor - but Jon at CEMP is certainly backing the project so that ultimately we will have a platfom called Genarrator which people can use to create and present interactive narratives.

I want, ideally, to be able to get a 'template' up and running by the summer so I can take it out and road test it with undergrads or college or school students. In order to do that, and make full use of the research time I have this academic year, Jon and I considered that if we can't get a pro developer on board soonish, we might go 'back' (in one sense, but forward in another) to the original smaller project - this would entail designing a protoype platform, maybe in an existing software application as simple as Word, which we can test for the various areas of interactive writing I feel are crucial, such as navigation design, meaningful narrative-driven linking, constant-context view, purposeful interactivity.

Then, even if this year we don't get to the point of having a downloadable, uploadable system with a CEMP host for 'Help', design advice, project gallery etc, we will have tested my design and writing prinicples- from that we can go forward next year to the 'bigger' phase.

We're going to meet with Ben Templeton (local web developer) to discuss 'spec', soon - and from there see what we feel we should do to get the platform design underway.