Recently Martin has won overall winner in the AKQA/Creative Review New Media Talent Award 2000 competition for the 'Broken Tongue' project. He is currently the full-time Creative Director at Zartis.com.

Can you tell me the background to the "Born With A Broken Tongue" project?

The overall objective of the project was to create a multimedia piece that educated people about stuttering. Keeping in mind that most of the investigations and research being done about stuttering concentrates on the medical causes of this impediment. My aim was to depict through image and sound how it feels.

Were your tutors surprised when you decided to choose such a personal subject to treat in a multimedia context?

For past four years I have been collecting CD-ROMs, the one downfall of this medium that I have noticed is that it seems to lack emotion. With this in mind, I started the MA with the aim of doing a piece, which was loaded with emotion. A piece that would educate an individual on an emotional level.

With this in mind the main MA lecturer, Tony Murray encouraged me to work on something that I could comfortably commit to without loosing focus after a few months and them having nothing to show at the end of the MA. So basically it was easier to work on project that had endless content avenues that I could explore. So doing something personal was easier because the research was already there. All that I had to do them was commit to producing a project that kept integrity and didn't compromise.

Did you see parallel's between new media technologies and stuttering?

I find it very interesting how people have accepted the limitations of multimedia, from slow downloading speeds on the Internet to slow processor on personal computers. I realised that this acceptance could be exploited to test how accommodating the user is towards a piece, which exploits the limitations of multimedia to depict stuttering.

As an MA student of the DIT multimedia program in Aungier Street, did you find the course beneficial? What improvements would you suggest?

It is easy to look back on a course and find problems. The most important thing in any course is to have the right students on board. In my year I worked with extremely gifted individuals so the lecturing Staffs choices were excellent. Obviously we had problems but the class gelled together and we worked on the problems. I do feel that the course should have a bit more commercial emphasis but it is a MA and Creativity should be exploited.

CD ROM based multimedia in general seems to have proven to have had a somewhat limited impact, due to distribution costs and the success of the internet. Do you see the Internet as the new 'multimedia' space?

Yes, it cheaper, faster and reaches a larger audience.

Who were the target audience for the CD Rom? What were some of its objectives?

Through my experience, educational institutions have buried their heads in the sand and neglected students with speech impediments. Their negligence then rubs off on fellow students, and breeds ignorance and can damage the individual.

So the initial aim was to educate people to become a little more tolerant toward stutterers. Through this experience the user would leave a little more informed and have a greater understanding of the problems that a stutterer face everyday. However I must stress that I was not looking for sympathy from the user, just a little patience.

The navigational structure of the CD Rom play's an important role in re-enforcing the tone of the piece - can you explain how the navigation is structured?

In current multimedia titles navigation has become accommodating towards the user, giving them the exact choices and leading them by the hand through the work. Never confronting them, never getting too difficult or challenging keeping it user friendly and accessible.

In my piece the navigation devices are triggered through sound and colour. The sound links correspond to the colour of the individual sections. The idea being that beneath a sound and colour lies another level, another insight. The user determines the navigation. If the sound bite appeals to the user then the user can move to another level. However the user will not actually know where they are going until the screen appears.

If you have ever spoken to a person who stutters you will know that there are repetitions and long pauses. These cannot be helped but have you found yourself beginning to get impatient or even trying to finish to sentence for the stutterer. I tried to capture this impatience by delaying the speed of links. I wanted the users to wait and get a little impatient; this heightens their experience and gives them the experience of listening to a stutterer.

What was your approach to the design of the interface for the CD Rom? How did the subject matter of the project influence your approach to the design?

When designing the interfaces I wanted to try and capture the confusions, panic and repetition of speaking with a stutter. There was a need to show that beneath the surface there was far more than the eye can see. This is captured in the interface. The blurred and layered images explore how I see stuttering through image and type. The screens are very busy with image and sound to show the confusion and aggregation suffered by stutterers. Small type and images forcing the user to move closer to the screen make them uncomfortable and agitated.

Altogether the piece strives to educate the user without spoon-feeding them. Which I hope makes it far more engaging and thought provoking.

What are some of your favourite examples of Cd Rom multimedia?

There are a few, I like Audioroms, Shift Control, it very cool, looks/sounds brilliant and altogether is an accomplished piece.

All of John Maeda work is brilliant. He produced Tap Type Write that has been ripped off by MTV UK in their new typography stings.

The Logo CD-ROM's are very cool, extremely interactive and great fun. Worth every penny.

But mostly I have started to concentrate on the web and its technology.

Have you any plans for future multimedia projects?

There is no doubt that this project has internationally raised my profile but it is time to move on. Born with a broken tongue now has a live of its own and the broken tongue web site is getting a lot of traffic.

I have recently joined Zartis.com as Creative Director. So all of my time at the moment is spent getting our design presence into order. It is a huge challenge but will be worth it in the long run.

Zartis.com has already made huge inroads into the international market place and we are obviously extremely excited with the feedback that we have received. I do have to constantly pinch myself with the success I have received but I suppose at the end of the day if you are committed to a project you will be rewarded in someway.

Visit the 'Born with a Broken Tongue' website

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