Alternative Mapping - Freedom of Choice

Dexter and Nader's Guide:
Everyday we find ourselves waking up and living out each day by making our own options and having the freedom of choice. What if that freedom was no longer available to us? What if you could not directly choose what you wanted to do? If the freedom of choice were taken away from you, how would you feel? In this interactive experience, you will not have to go anywhere specific, you will only have to follow a set of rules. These rules will correspond to a few of your daily tasks such as communication, eating, listening to music, and watching T.V.

• 1st task – pick a number between 10 and 60


• Communication: No Cell Phone use (texting or phone calls), No speaking to people of the opposite gender, Only speak when spoken to


• Eating: Do not eat anything you have eaten in the past week, You must only drink water, x amount of cups.


• Listening to Music: 1st number = scroll down in your albums list, 2nd number = in the selected album scroll down in the songs list, You may only listen to one song on repeat (first song to come up on your shuffle)


• Watching T.V.: Selected number is the channel you must watch, You may only watch one channel on TV (whichever channel comes on first)

Liz and I followed Dexter and Nader's guide, which involved restrictions to daily activities, such as not using a cell phone, listening to the same song over and over, and limiting speaking interactions with others. Living without a sense of freedom is certainly different. I never realized how attached I am to my cell phone. I got around that obstacle by keeping touch online. It’s really hard to keep track of people and make plans without using a cell phone, though, because that’s what people expect you to use. Not talking to people of the opposite gender was hard, too, but not impossible, as was speaking only when spoken to. They were hard tasks, but not impossible ones. They just really make you focus on such a small thing, like talking, and experiencing it in a different way.

I’d suggest adding a time limit. It was hard to know how long to keep myself going on this crazy path. The interaction would be very different if it only had to be followed for an hour, versus a day, versus a week. Also, when I was asked me to choose a number, it was confusing when I was trying to find a song on my playlist. The guide asked for only one number between 10 and 60, but then wanted two, and then wanted it to be decided by shuffle. I used the shuffle method because it made more sense to me. It was odd to listen to one song over and over, but again, if I had to listen to the same song (In Bloom by Nirvana) for 10 minutes versus the same song for 3 hours, things would be very different. Watching TV isn’t really part of my normal routine, so another suggestion could involve the user choosing something that they do all the time, such as checking facebook, and changing or limiting it in some way themselves, such as changing the language. Overall, I thought this was a really creative guide, and it certainly made me think differently about my daily routine.