After reading this article, I realized that I had been using the word interactive without fully questioning what it actually means. I mostly associated it with responsiveness and just assumed that if something reacted to my input, it was interactive. The author’s examples and definition of interactivity helped me clearly distinguish between interaction, reaction, and even participation. For example, the branch example showed how it was more reactive rather than interactive because there was only one active actor. I also really liked how the author argues that reaction, no matter how intense, never becomes interaction. The example with the dancers made it clear to me that, yes, the dancers were dancing with the music (giving a response), but they did not provide any feedback that changed the music or affected it in any way. This also made me question my own work and whether my sketches are more reactive than truly interactive. For example, in my work, I created sketches where the system responds immediately to the participant (like if they press a button), but I did not make it actually change or adapt based on their behavior. So I think my previous sketches were more about animations rather than interactive ones because, yes, it responds to input, but does not meaningfully listen, think, and respond in the way he describes.
I also like how interactivity was discussed more as a continuous variable rather than binary, especially with the use of the fridge example. I think framing interactivity as high or low rather than interactive or not interactive helped me understand how people can experience the same system differently. I agree with the author’s argument in this case, because it gives designers a more practical way to evaluate the interaction on a scale from high to low, rather than just dismissing the concept altogether. But this has me questioning who gets to define that standard of high or low interactivity, especially when we all can experience systems so differently.
Also, the difference between the user interface and interactivity was clear. At first, I had a hard time distinguishing between them. I usually think visually first, and then add interaction later. But now it is clear that for a strong interactive system, it needs to be heavy on both aspects of interactivity in technology, which is combining both form and function, and should not be separate steps. While I do agree with the author, I think he is somewhat biased towards interaction models that give off human conversations. I think this bias most likely comes from his own experience as an interactivity designer, but I think it also limits how other forms of interaction might be perceived and valued. In future work, I want to design my sketches more intentionally, making sure each element has a functional role in the interaction so it does not look like it was just thrown all together.