What Does This Button Do?

Interactivity and Media

Instructor: Irene Fubara-Manuel
Week 3

Housekeeping

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Interactivity Beyond the Touchscreen 👉🏿

What is Interactivity

In groups of 3 discuss (5 mins):

  • Write down some characteristics of interactivity from the video and from your readings
  • How do you define interactivity?
  • Prepare to discuss with the class

“Interactivity is an underdefined concept”

Sheizaf Rafaeli (1988, p.110)

Interactivity. From new media to communication.

The degree to which two or more communication parties can act on each other, on the communication medium, and on the messages and the degree to which such influences are synchronized.

Yuping Liu & L. J. Shrum (2002, p.54)

What is Interactivity and is it Always Such a Good Thing?

  • User-machine
  • User-user
  • User-message

Yuping Liu & L. J. Shrum (2002, p.54)

What is Interactivity and is it Always Such a Good Thing?

  • Interaction:
    Social - Two-Way Communication “takes place within so-called ‘reaction sequences’”

  • Interactivity:
    Technological - Tool for communication

Interaction vs Interactivity

Oliver Quiring and Wolfgang Schweiger (2008)

At least three criteria can act as indicators for distinguishing the terms ‘interaction’ and ‘interactivity’.

  • ‘inter- activity’ claims for real and observable interactions among humans via a machine or between [hu]man and machine, and thus implies real human behavior.
  • in case of interactivity a technical component occupies a key position within the communication process.
  • no change of devices will be necessary for interactive communication.

Interaction vs Interactivity

Oliver Quiring and Wolfgang Schweiger (2008)

  • Action
  • Evaluation of the Situation
  • Exchange of meaning — Encoding and Decoding meaning

Interaction vs Interactivity

Oliver Quiring and Wolfgang Schweiger (2008)

In groups of 3 dicuss (5 mins):

  • What is the myth of interactivity?
  • What are the implications of the myth of interactivity?

Manovich

Hypertext, Hypermedia, Branching-Type, Associating

Consider a future device for individual use […]. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, “memex” 👉🏿 will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.

Vannevar Bush (1945)

As We May Think

Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an “architecture of participation,” and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.

Tim O’Reilly (2005)

Web 2.0: Compact Definition?

In groups of 3 dicuss:

  • What are affordances?
  • How do users respond to affordances?
  • What are some examples of user re-action?

Shaw

It’s not you. Bad doors are everywhere. 👉🏿

Affordance as System of Signs

What is Interaction Design?
by Gillian Crampton Smith 👉🏿

5Dimensions of Interaction Design

1D: Words

2D: Visual representations

3D: Physical objects or space

4D: Time

5D: Behaviour

Workshop

  • Using 4Ds of interaction design, create a slide show with text.
  • Add image manipulation to this slide show.
  • Give sound feedback.