Week 1 - What is Interaction?

What is Interaction?

Interaction is an exchange combined with an subsequent change, that then causes another exchange to occur. While I mostly agree with this rant, I do not agree that for something to be truly ‘interactive’ something must engage the whole hand or body – to do so discounts the amazing imaginative and cognitive capability of the human mind; see for example what Stephan Hawking is able to do without the use of 99% of his controlled motor functions.

However, I don’t disagree that to be more interactive, something must engage more of the body, more of the senses, and respond in a much clearer, much more interesting, much less abstract manner.

Therefore I see interaction as a gradient, as I see most if not all things. On the one end is Television – not interactive whatsoever… beyond the remote control. On the other end is free-form Salsa Dance – two partners responding to each other’s movements in real time with the entirety of their senses to create a new experience, even if not novel.

I also therefore disagree with the Chris Crawford of The Art of Interaction Design in part – as I see interaction being much larger than listening, thinking, and speaking. There are hosts of interactions which are non-verbal: sign language is one, team sports are another. And there are hosts of interactions between man and machine, such VR that allows doctors to see, understand, and treat cancers in ways they could not before.

So what is interaction? At its best, Interaction is active, it is sensory, it is between two complex machines, with interesting and unexpected changes occurring as a result of the exchange between those machines. At its worst, interaction changes little in the outside world, rather, it extends it. Cars, video games – the proverbial refrigerator lights – are interactive but not impactful. In essence they are responsive to our actions, similarly to how we are responsive to the actions of a glowing 24 fps screen.

And yet, even the simplest refrigerator light changes with response to that stimulus. So, like there are unicellular organisms, and there are multicellular organisms – the question ‘what is interactivity’ matters less to me than ‘how interactivity.’

The question of ‘Why’ seems clear, as outlined in both the rant, and the the book – we are living in a time that is both the most interactive its ever been in terms of sheer diversity of interactive capabilities, as well as the least interactive time, as defined by the raw number of interactions with limitedly interactive devices. 

So now the problem becomes, what should we do, for what, and how will we build it so that it is interactive, so that it does make real changes, that are felt, seen, heard, and responded to.

Because reacting isn’t enough – we need to dance.