In this chapter, Chris Crawford sets about to define the murky concept of ‘interactivity’. As Crawford rightly mentions, interactivity has become the buzzword of the Web age, prompting much corporate marketing based on the notion of interactivity, even when it doesn’t make sense. Thus, it is important to set a clear definition of interactivity and what constitutes as interactive.
I feel Crawford’s “Listening, Thinking, Speaking” definition is definitely a good place to start, but while trying to exclude things that are definitely not interactive, it may exclude things that are conventionally seen as interactive. After all, so-called smart lamps, for example, do not “think” much (I am talking about the most basic ones, such as the ones that respond to clapping), yet they could be classified as interactive. The argument can be made that there is some level of signal processing to differentiate a clap from background noise, and I won’t claim to be an expert on the matter, but I believe that it is still simpler than the thinking that Crawford calls for. This definition also excludes things like “interactive fiction”, because no thinking goes on in deciding between pre-coded paths in an interactive novel, and the reader doesn’t have free reign over the responses they can communicate to the characters of the story.
In this regard, I found that looking through the lens of degrees of interactivity makes more sense. Thus, things like refrigerator doors are low on the interactivity scale. Smart lamps, as well as many beginner Interactive Art projects, could be classified as medium interactive. Medium-high interactivity might include video games. And the highest tiers of interactivity are relegated to AI LLM chatbots and actual people. Thus, interactivity is a spectrum, and much to Crawford’s dislike, is inherently subjective.