The Art of Interactive Design: Chapter 1 Reaction
This book reads like a philosophy text with a significant dose of snark. I feel like its complaints about the misuse of "interactivity" do date the text a bit, as I haven't seen inanimate objects branded with the term for at least a decade, although I'm sure his complaints were valid at the time. His definition of interactivity - mainly how he reduces it to the three necessary components of the act of interaction, and builds up from there - makes a lot of sense to me, and I'd say I'm completely on board with it. The idea of input, processing, and output is objectively necessary to any kind of interaction, and I don't think I could accept any kind of definition that didn't require those three to be present.
That being said, his hesitation to accept low-level interactions like the tree branch as "interactive" didn't quite convince me, but maybe that's just because I've been taking a philosophy class - and, as a result, am more argumentative about that sort of thing. However, the idea of "degrees" of interactivity is probably a necessary distinction to begin making, as proved by his fridge example.
Without restating it in his own words, if I had to come up with "my own damn definition of interactivity", it'd go something like this:
"Interaction is what happens when multiple things continue to be affected by each other's actions."
It doesn't so much differ from Crawford as it restates it - although I do exclude the idea of "thinking". I believe it to be implicit in being "affected" - because Crawford stretches out the idea of "thinking" so much that it could mean something as simple as a single switch flipping. As long as there is some describable process caused by A's actions which leads B to perform a different action, that's fine. Crawford also makes a distinction between reaction and interaction - reactions are part of interaction, but if a tree branch breaks in the forest and you didn't cause it to, you're only reacting to it, not interacting with it.
The reducio ad absurdum argument in the back of my mind right now is this:
"Well, by this logic, a stone is interactive! If you poke it, it's affected by your actions, and it responds to your actions by applying a resistant force against whatever you're poking it with!"
Well, then, yes. A stone is interactive. If you accidentally kick a stone with your foot, that's a minute low-level interaction on a physical level. It would not have moved, and your foot would not have felt that resistant force, had you not kicked it. Tossing a ball up into the air and catching it is interactive, and people often do it for enjoyment. Placing your hands on a table with enough force creates a noise, and people manipulate that interaction for rhythmic purposes.
-b
That being said, his hesitation to accept low-level interactions like the tree branch as "interactive" didn't quite convince me, but maybe that's just because I've been taking a philosophy class - and, as a result, am more argumentative about that sort of thing. However, the idea of "degrees" of interactivity is probably a necessary distinction to begin making, as proved by his fridge example.
Without restating it in his own words, if I had to come up with "my own damn definition of interactivity", it'd go something like this:
"Interaction is what happens when multiple things continue to be affected by each other's actions."
It doesn't so much differ from Crawford as it restates it - although I do exclude the idea of "thinking". I believe it to be implicit in being "affected" - because Crawford stretches out the idea of "thinking" so much that it could mean something as simple as a single switch flipping. As long as there is some describable process caused by A's actions which leads B to perform a different action, that's fine. Crawford also makes a distinction between reaction and interaction - reactions are part of interaction, but if a tree branch breaks in the forest and you didn't cause it to, you're only reacting to it, not interacting with it.
The reducio ad absurdum argument in the back of my mind right now is this:
"Well, by this logic, a stone is interactive! If you poke it, it's affected by your actions, and it responds to your actions by applying a resistant force against whatever you're poking it with!"
Well, then, yes. A stone is interactive. If you accidentally kick a stone with your foot, that's a minute low-level interaction on a physical level. It would not have moved, and your foot would not have felt that resistant force, had you not kicked it. Tossing a ball up into the air and catching it is interactive, and people often do it for enjoyment. Placing your hands on a table with enough force creates a noise, and people manipulate that interaction for rhythmic purposes.
-b
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