What do you consider to be the characteristics of a strongly interactive system? What ideas do you have for improving the degree of user interaction in your p5 sketches?
A strongly interactive system is one that feels alive in the sense that it responds to the user and isn’t just like a one way conversation. It listens to what the user is doing, understands those actions, and adapts in a way that makes the experience feel more personal and engaging. In the reading Crawford talks about interactivity being a kind of conversation between the system and the user, with three essential elements, listening, thinking, and speaking. This means the system is not just reacting, but actively participating and if any of those elements falter, the interaction falls flat.
Thinking about how I can bring this to my p5 sketches, I realize there’s a lot I could do to make the interaction feel more alive. Specifically I think there’s room to play with how the system “speaks” back to my users. Before this reading my idea of interaction was just having visual feedback when a user clicks or drags, but now I think there’s more potential to make those responses more dynamic and meaningful. For example, instead of the same visual change with every interaction, I could have the system react differently based on how the user engages. If a user clicks quickly or drags slowly, the feedback could reflect that, so essentially just subtle changes in how elements behave could help keep the user invested. By treating user interaction as this ongoing exchange, I think I can create sketches that feel more responsive, intuitive, and engaging. The goal is for the user to feel like the system is learning and adapting, making each interaction unique. That’s what really makes it feel like the system has a personality of its own, and the user is an active part of shaping the experience.