As a designer, there’s one phrase I find really funny that people ask me: “Can you make it more interactive?” This confuses me immensely. Do you want me to make it “pop” out more? More interactions on your social media posts? Are you expecting something else but you can’t think of the exact word to sum all your thoughts up so instead you tell me to make it more interactive? What do you mean? Thus, I 100% agree with all, if not most, statements that Chris Crawford makes in this reading. Interactivity is “overused and underunderstood.” Just like any other concept (think common internet words and phrases today like “hyperfixation” or “gaslight / gatekeep / girlboss”), interactivity is also one of those words that we didn’t originally know the importance of when it first came out, but now that we live in such a technologically advanced (and advancing) world, we see that word everywhere. And, if you asked someone to define what exactly interactivity is… well. You won’t receive the same definition twice.
I liked how he brought up the example of people using interactivity as a way to make things sound interesting. Interactive screen! Interactive book. Interactive art. Interactive clothes. Shoes. You see them in adverts all the time now. Interactive exhibitions. Interactive events. Washing machines with interactive interfaces. Are we using this term correctly? What is the actual definition of interactivity? When thinking of defining interactivity, he states, “the joy of thinking comes from all of those fascinating nooks and crannies that lurk in nuance.” Could this not also be applied to defining art? There are so many flexibilities in defining what art exactly is, because we all have such varying definitions of what we determine is art or not. So, anything can be considered interactive, because everyone interacts with things differently… right?
I also found his definition interesting, interaction as “a cyclic process in which two actors alternately listen, think and speak.” In Understanding Interactive Media, we discussed interactivity as feedback loops. I, the artist, act a certain way. My audience acts a certain way in response. Then, to their response, I change the way I act too. Even when artists study art, they create an artwork, they see how others react to it and act accordingly, some responses being an art teacher calling their work trash, or a person on the internet sending a comment of how much they like their artstyle. The Gomer and Fredegund example is similar to this. I also never really considered interaction existing in degrees, which surprised me. I liked the comparison of degrees of interaction to having two different conversations where you talk in one and the other person barely responds to you, and another conversation where you both flow really well. They both are interactive! They’re just different degrees of interactions.
In a strongly interactive system, I think the degree of interaction should be very high – there should be a very prominent feedback loop. For example, if an artwork starts off as the color green, and I don’t like that and I say I don’t like this color, it changes to orange. And, I can tell it again, and it can change if it can. However, even with this example, the artwork follows my instructions and doesn’t adapt. It is simply following my instructions and not actually responding. The system should be able to respond to the audience’s conversation. Regarding what ideas I have for improving the degree of user interaction in my P5 sketches, I think I’m yet to figure this out. I do feel like when I create a design, I don’t think too much about interaction and visuals separately. I unintentionally put them together and work with them together, because a good design should have both working collaboratively, not side by side. I’ll probably be more intentional when I design now, though.