UC Santa Cruz

SlimeArt is a Casual Creator generative art tool that allows users to create dynamic, particle designs with the Monte Carlo Physarum model using a particle brush and a deposit brush. Casual Creators are creativity support tools that value the feeling of enjoyment, the support of exploration, and usability of the interface. Through a user study (N=15), SlimeArt was evaluated with the Creativity Support Index showing it supported exploration, immersion, and enjoyment above expressiveness, results worth effort, and collaboration as hypothesized beforehand. By observing users’ questions, suggestions, and behaviors in the tool, we were able to identify insights as to how we should redesign the presentation of the particle deposit strength slider to help users better understand how the particles and deposit interact. In addition to the usability study, the SlimeArt Encouragement Study placed users into two conditions to evaluate if the presence of an encouraging virtual agent, SlimeBot, affected users’ creative self-efficacy, perception of ownership over their art, or level of exploration. While SlimeBot did not affect users’ creative self-efficacy and perception of ownership, it did show a significant effect on how users reported SlimeArt’s support of exploration in the Creativity Support Index. A thorough investigation into the usability of SlimeArt and the effects of SlimeBot presented the issues with the first design which led us to identify the ways SlimeArt’s redesign could better support users to create evolving network designs modeled after slime mold.