The brief asked us to create an interface that cultivated interaction and appreciation with the surrounding ecology on UT’s campus grounds.

I decided to create a “Gremlin” live action roleplaying experience, encouraging users to jump into secluded areas on campus and act like a wild and curious forest creature in the form of a physical pamphlet. UT’s campus offers many locations to slink away and escape, helping users disconnect from the professionalism of student life and into a world of oddity.

Exploring iNaturalist and the Austin Odditrees guide, I made investigations into what makes a good ecological interface.

Manfred Max-Neef’s system of human needs categorizes life to different needs that people wish to satisfy in order to have a fulfilled life. It is up to a person to satisfy these needs, and it is up to design to guide users to satisfaction.

As a class, we discussed Jenny Odell’s talk, “How to Do Nothing” , which placed an importance on exiting the always working mindset of corporate spaces and constant connection, and instead embracing non-intensive observation. Nothing meant disconnecting from constant thinking and moving into a state of purposeful wandering, often in nature. Moving to this state helps us fulfil our human needs of subsistence, leisure, and freedom.

To learn more about the environment of UT and the process of purposeful wandering, we conducted an ethnographic study through the iNaturalist app. We went out using the app to discover plants and animals while logging our ethnographic findings.

There was a cycle of aimless wandering to finding plants to identification through iNaturalist. The app encouraged exploration through the allure of information and accomplishment of a greater community goal, but outside factors like weather and traffic would break the immersion and pull us away from the activity.

We then moved to studying the physical interface of the Austin Odditrees pamphlet. Given a map of the area and a list of objectives, we set off in search for interesting trees.

The guide was intentionally vague on where the trees were, leading to moments of confused (but hopeful) wandering. This sparked conversation and bonding within our group as we moved towards our goal, getting excited as we made it to the crusis point of the tree. Once there, we either relished in our victory or were mildly disappointed in what we had found. Either way, we contemplated the tree for a while before repeating our cycle.

This guide helped to foster discovery in the seemingly mundane walk that we had around Austin. By providing the affordances of a map and hints about what we were looking for, we were entranced enough by the prospect to make our own fun along the way.

Taking all that I learned from these activities, I developed my list of principles for a good ecological interface.

Key design implications Key design implications

With the principles of an interface defined, I moved to developing ideas for my own interface, eventually settling on getting people to explore secluded areas in places they normally pass.

I started working on different ideas for my interface. I was set on creating a zine, since I felt that a physical interface would better help with the idea of escapism. Dumping my brain out, I generated ideas and eventually nailed it down to 4 different concepts.

Feedback from my peers and professor on concepts 1 and 4 was positive. However, my professor had concerns for the health of the trees after years of punching for concept 4 and thought that concept 1 could work well, but recommended me to push my ideas more and challenge myself. This led me to pursue the ideas of digging in dirt.

I took another walk outside to develop my interface, when I stumbled across a quiet section of Waller Creek. Jumping into the creek, I felt disconnected from the outside as I wandered, discovering a wonderland of ecology and garbage. There was a sense that I was doing something wrong, but in a good way, encouraging me to act mischievously.

This exploration of the creek was freeing and embodied what I wanted in an outdoors experience. How would I help others experience the same sense of wonder I did though? It dawned on me. Gremlins.

The Gremlin’s Guide to UT helps users enter an escapist fantasy by LARPing as a “gremlin”, a fictional creature who hides in dens hidden away from the public eye.

Moving on from conceptualization, I drew out the experience that I wished to create, showing the affordances offered by the guide and the surrounding landscape. Users would be encouraged to walk along the long paths of the creek before jumping in and exploring.

The creek created a sense of smallness which I thought would contribute to the otherworldly feeling of the interface experience. The key to making this interface successful would be getting users to disconnect from both themselves and their environment.

Gremlins are a fictional group of creatures that love exploring hidden areas and collecting strange objects, similar to stereotypical fantasy goblins and kobolds. They care for their environment, making sure to clean up the trash in the area so that other critters and plants are unharmed. However, gremlins are also not that bright and need a guide to help them. Thus, they created the Gremlin’s Guide to UT, informally known as the Gremlin Guide.

The Gremlin Guide contains everything a gremlin needs to get started on their gremlin activities including a map of interesting dens, a safety checklist, and prompts for what to find. This prototype was made for initial testing to see what needed to be ironed out for future iterations.

Overall, the guide was very positively received. Although the locations were hard to find due to the underdeveloped map, the experience itself was very enjoyable. The theming helped the users get into the mindset of a gremlin, and they wouldn’t have gone without being prompted by the guide. They did request that the experience was even “more gremlin” though.

A journey map was made to help mark peak points of the user experience. Using the map, I marked the crusis points of the gremlin journey. Finding the location and discovering ecology were the most crucial, so I focused on developing those aspects.

A second round of feedback from my peers also suggested more interactive elements in the zine. The current dirt and creek facts pages felt out of place in the guide due to their more educational nature, and also just “were not fun.” The question of what a gremlin was also came up with users asking what they needed to act as. And so, my professor came with the statement, “It’s time to make a gremlin manifesto.”

We, the gremlins, have come together to help bring others into the world of gremlin-hood. To do so, we have defined what makes a gremlin in order to bring users into our gremlin mindset.

1. Gremlins enjoy engaging in tomfoolery. Run around and forget about being normal. Get weird, get wild, get wacky!
2. Gremlins are mischievous, but not disrespectful. Do not leave a mess, damage the den, or harm the critters.
3. Make sure gremlins can enjoy the dens! If you see stuff that could hurt the critters, dispose of it properly somewhere else.
4. Greed and pride fuel gremlins. Show off what you found to other gremlins by recording it in this book or your phone.
5. Gremlins hide from the world until they have reached the dens. One’s inner gremlin often awakens in secluded areas.
6. Gremlins do enjoy gathering in small packs though. Gather your friends to form your own gremlin party.

Optional: While on your adventure, jump around while hunched over with your arms out like a velociraptor. If with others, try speaking with crude language in squeaky voices.

With this manifesto developed, I started work on the next version. I removed the fact sections as they were too "big brain" for a gremlin to note down, replacing them interactive discovery charts for users to draw in what they found. I also left an open ended page to record any miscellaneous information.

I decided to limit this prototype to two areas so I could better tune the experience. With a better drawn map, I included markers, hints, and rough drawings of the locations to guide users to the dens, making sure not to handhold them with too much information. This side also has note taking areas and featured finds to promote investigation.

With the guide now finished, I moved to producing physical copies for testing.

Letting others use the guide, I test to see if it fosters curiosity and appreciation of ecology along with serving as an escapist fantasy.

Once again, feedback was highly positive. Users “really enjoyed being a gremlin” and had a very fun time walking around and exploring. One tester noted that “It felt a bit strange at first and I did feel like a bit of a weirdo going places where people don't normally go, but I enjoyed how you framed that experience as intentionally uncomfortable.”

The new discovery charts were also very much welcome, with users putting them to good use.

There were fair critiques of the guide though. The map was cumbersome to use, and users were left slightly confused at the locations of the dens due to the non-descript drawings. Users also wished the activity was a bit more guided, specifically wanting more special finds to reward choosing a location.

Overall, this project has ignited my interest in physical interfaces and interactions with ecology.

With this project concluded, I can say that I am satisfied with the experience I was able to bring to others.

Future developments for this project:

- More Locations - Having 4 locations on a guide feels like it hits a sweet spot of having not to many choices to overwhelm someone, but still offering different options so that users don’t have to return to the same location over and over.
- Better Descriptions - I would like to write more about the locations to help guide users, but I would also want to make sure they stay simple enough for a gremlin to easily understand them.
- Other Venues? - I would like to explore other locations from around campus, to other areas in Austin, to even creating a general field guide that could apply anywhere.
- Immersion - I think using different paper, printing with a risograph, etc. can help improve the experience of holding a guide made by gremlins.