The idea of developing immersive technology that goes beyond the limits of the 2D screen has been concerning me for a while already, so I got very involved into the topic of the rant by Victor Bret. Interactive design was an ambiguous term back in 2011, when the text was published, and remains often misunderstood now. How can we call “pictures under glass” truly interactive if we do not engage with them physically?
Haptics are one way to push the boundaries of human-computer interaction further. When our fingers get some sort of response, even a slight vibration, it makes our experience with gadgets more engaging on a cognitive level. Here is an example from my life: my phone is always in silent mode, so when I type something, I do not hear the artificial sound of keys clicking. At some point I stopped understanding whether I am actually typing – so I turned on the “haptic response” feature. This makes the keys vibrate slightly every time I press on them, which creates a more realistic experience of using a physical keyboard.
Nonetheless, I agree with Bret that interactivity can be pushed even beyond haptics. At the same time, it is still difficult to come up with a clear solution, if there is one. Reading Bret’s ideas almost 15 years later was interesting, considering the latest inventions in AI which, to some extent, contradict with his points about the use of voice – turns out it can be used to generate something beyond linguistics.