My definition of interactive was always just… I do something, and the thing does something back. A game, a movie, whatever. As long as we were both making actions, I figured that was it.
But in the chapter putting the interaction or being interactive into the frame of a conversation (listen, think, speak) made me stop and question that. It makes me wonder if the actions have to actually depend on each other. Like, the system’s reaction should be different based on what I did, not just a pre-programmed response to any action.
This makes me look at a lot of stuff we’ve made in p5.js completely differently. Most of those examples aren’t really interactive by this standard. I mean, you click the mouse and a shape appears, but it’s the same shape every single time. The code isn’t really thinking about my input, it’s just reacting. It’s a glorified light switch. True interaction needs that middle ‘think’ step, where the response is actually considered, not just triggered. That’s a way more interesting goal to aim for.