Chris Crawford challenges our initial understanding of interactivity with a discussion of various definitions of what interactivity is and what it is not. What I found notable in trying to define interactivity is that it is the listening, thinking and speaking between two actors, and not a reaction to an action of one of the actors. Crawford also establishes that interactivity is not two-sided, but rather it is a continuum, where we can establish high and low interactivity and bring an example of the fridge lights to distinguish between these levels.
Here, I disagree with the author’s choice to place the fridge at low interactivity. The fridge light has a very limited number of responses to out actions, meaning either turning on or off, which I would not call interactive. It rather reacts to our actions, just in more than one way. No matter how carefully the fridge “listens”, our how intense it “thinks”, its response is not going to vary unless it is broken in some way, which in turn will remove a component of interactivity and fail to fit in the definition provided in the reading.
However, I would like to further explore if interaction is any different from alternating reactions from two parties engaging in listening, thinking, and speaking. Ultimately, exploring the best forms of interactivity is essential for the user experience, therefore I believe these definitions are crucial for solving interactivity issues without faking it.