What do you consider to be the characteristics of a strongly interactive system?
I think it is the ability to render meaningful change as a result of the conveyance of meaning coming from the user. If we were to conceptualize a very weak interactive system, it would not change at all as a result of user input. This would be like conversing with someone who did not listen to what you had to say and as soon as you were done speaking, reply with “Yes, anyways…” and just continue speaking on whatever they had to say, not making meaning of your input. If we take that the reversal of this would be a strong interactive system, we can consider that a strong system would make meaningful change as a result of user input. Like a conversationalist that actively listens and asks questions pertaining to the content of your input, a good system would have the ability to register meaning in the user’s input effectively, then use the input to meaningfully “reply.”
What ideas do you have for improving the degree of user interaction in your p5 sketches?
Because we are limited, generally, to the hardware of a laptop running the p5 website, the keyboard and mouse are going to be the primary, most accessible methods of input which the basis of user interaction will be built upon. Because of this, trying to at least make the user interact by moving and clicking the mouse is a good idea. Because of how we are trying to increase user interaction, using the keyboard, which is much easier for users to assign meaning to inputs to is also a great idea. Chatbots are the pinnacle of this, where they can assign meaning to the user’s textual inputs and generate a response after “reading” what you wrote.