Characteristics of a strongly interactive system
One key takeaway of the reading is that degrees of interactivity can be determined by examining how much the three necessary elements of conversation (namely, listening, thinking and speaking) are incorporated in a cyclic, alternative manner between two actors. Let’s take this definition further. Here is my expanded definition of a strongly interactive system – it scores well on the following three aspects:
- the amount of information it receives (eg. taking in the position of the user’s feet v.s. taking in the position of the user’s whole body over time, their voice and their facial expressions)
- the extent to which it understands the data (eg. not understanding due to lack of knowledge vs understanding due to having knowledge on the subject area) and intellectually engages with it in a manner that fulfills its intention. It is measured by the amount of influence it gives to the other actor (eg. an action that causes a subtle change in the user’s view of a topic vs. an action that causes a total shift in the same user’s view of the same topic).
- how well the data it processed is expressed, considering form (eg. showing important information in small text vs large text), measured by how well a user understands the intention.
Let’s break it down. Firstly, I posit that the test for interactivity must consider all users whom the system is intended for. In the refrigerator example, not only one actor, but different types of actors are considered here: adult and child. Since different kinds of users can use one system, and the system may not be intended for every single person who exists (eg. babies who wouldn’t open refrigerator doors), the test for interactivity must consider all users whom the system is intended for. Second, a strongly interactive system is the opposite of the weakly interactive system: it has a great extent to which it listens, thinks and speaks in response to all users whom the system is intended for. Third, since interaction is not one-way, but two-way, a strongly interactive system must indicates both: (1) a great extent to which that system (a) receives information, (b) qualitatively processes it according to intention, and (c) clearly expresses that data which it had made sense of – in response to all users, as well as (2) a great extent to which intended users can (a) listen, (b) think and (3) speak in response to the system, in an alternating and repeatable manner. Fourth, a strongly interactive system’s quality of processing its data received can be measured by the how well it intellectually engages with it in a manner that fulfills its intention. By intention, I mean intention within a spectrum of full transparency and some ambiguity (total ambiguity is excluded because that does not allow proper communication and consequently, does not allow proper interaction). Sometimes, we need ambiguity – some things hidden, not everything revealed. Think of a teacher teaching a student – a good teacher could give some information on a topic, then raise difficult questions to the student in order to engage the student more deeply and intellectually, find nuances and dive into greater complexity. Ambiguity can provoke further curiosity and interaction, thus, intention matters and is necessary. Fifth, processing of information must be done in a way that intention must be made clear to the user (eg. the user actually notices that some information is hidden and others emphasized). In the teacher-student example, the student recognized that the teacher is hiding certain information. Engagement sparks with this recognition, so helping the other user understand intention is crucial. See the appendix below for my proposed expanded definition of a highly interactive system.
Ideas for improving degree of user interaction in p5 sketches
There are so many ways to improve the degrees of user interaction. The system can perform some response to user’s actions: eg. mouse clicks, mouse moves left, mouse moves right, mouse moves upwards, mouse moves downwards, key pressed, and key released. Let’s take some examples. If the mouse is clicked, some text that’s associated with an object (eg. cat) can be displayed. If the mouse moves left, spacing between dots may decrease, and if the mouse moves right, spacing between dots may increase. If the left key is pressed, an object can move left and if the right key is pressed, an object can move right. If the ‘a’ key is pressed, the canvas could have a background the colour of an apple. And if the ‘b’ key is pressed, the canvas could have a black background. As an interactivity designer, it will be important to consider the purpose of the artwork, and as the reading puts it, consider both form and function in creating a unified design.