Os Designers de Media Interactivos não só deverão estar preparados para a utilização de ferramentas computorizadas nos processos criativos de novos medias digitais, como deverão estar preparados para desempenhar um papel crucial no desenvolvimento e aplicação de novas tecnologias da comunicação, entretenimento, e gestão de informação. A sua formação deve assim incluir os domínios criativo e técnico. Enquanto a sua tarefa principal é desenvolver processos criativos de design funcional e sedutor através das novas tecnologias, fazê-lo requer um nível considerável de conhecimentos dos métodos e técnicas utilizados por engenheiros informáticos, nomeadamente engenheiros de software, de modo a serem capazes de, efectivamente, produzirem e implementarem os seus projectos.

Examples of Interactive Media. Sources: SecondLife.com and Microsoft.com

Why an Interactive Media Design course at UMa?

The creation of a program for a ‘Licenciatura em Design de Media Interactivos’ (LDMI) answers the strongly growing need of a range of industry and services sectors to employ specialist designers who are capable of creating professional content and innovative applications through the utilisation of the so-called New Media and the new technologies that continue to appear for Human-Computer Interaction.

The term ‘New Media’ defines a range of media that have digital carriers, are normally not produced on paper or other existing media, and often have an interaction aspect. These new media, or Interactive Media as we prefer to call them, utilise a host of digital technologies that make it possible to create a different experience for the user. If in design with traditional media the conveying of the message is the focal objective, with Interactive Media the consumer, or rather, the user becomes an integral part of the designed experience.

The term Interactive Media refers to the innovative counterparts of the traditional media and product: Blogs and Wikis versus Newspapers and Magazines, computer-games versus board games, digitally animated movies versus hand-drawn cartoons or clay animations. The term also refers to the innovation of existing media: making television interactive, enhancing telecommunication with Internet applications. And finally, the Interactive Media Design refers to the design and creation of virtual or augmented environments, web-based social networks, online communities, or collaborative online workspaces. All these new kinds of media and forms of communication and entertainment do not substitute the traditional ones, but complement them in order to expand the universe of possibilities and user experiences.

An important dissimilarity of the Interactive Media with the media as we knew them until the wide adoption of computers is that designers require different skills, more specialised technical knowledge, and a different attitude towards their professional development. Moreover, the creative inspiration and expression of a young Interactive Media Designer will be influenced, if not driven, by the nature of the various media and the possibilities offered by new technologies.

For a designer to accept the challenge of our time is not just to optimise the utilisation of the ever-growing toolbox of new technologies, but to do so in a creative, sustainable, and human-centred way, always with full awareness of social and aesthetic responsibilities. Moreover, it is to be challenging towards both consumers and technologists; for the former to be curious and open to innovation, and for the latter to find better and novel techniques to serve the human curiosity and need for innovation.

Interactive Media Designers are not only fully prepared to use computers as tools for creating designs through digital media, they also play a crucial role in the development and application of new technologies for communication, entertainment, and information handling. Their education must thus include both the creative domains and the technical domains. While their main task is to create appealing and functional designs with new technologies, to do so requires a fair level of knowledge and insight in the methods and techniques used by informatics and software engineers to produce and implement these designs.

The Department of Mathematics and Engineering at the University of Madeira offers an excellent environment for the education of the 1st cycle course in Interactive Media Design. The department has a standing reputation in Software Engineering (SE) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) that has recently been manifested in the CMU-Portugal project for the Professional Master in Human-Computer Interaction, which is taught in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University, USA.

Prof. Jos P. van Leeuwen, PhD
Director of the LDMI course