Living Intelligently on the Web
Institut de l'Homme et de la Technologie
 

Interactivity on the Web

Interactivity.

It's what distinguishes the new media from the old. It's what makes communication responsive and personal. We want to build web sites that interact with the user. Everybody talks about interactivity, but really, what is it?

At its simplest, an interactive work involves action on the part of the user (or viewer, or reader, or player, or whatever you call them), which provokes another action on the part of the computer. And vice versa.

Interactivity comes in many forms. With an interactive work of communication, a user can...

Choose

She can select the place she wants to go to or the topic she wants to explore. She can click on the word she wants to know more about, or choose the city she wants to fly to. Choosing is the simplest form of interactivity. Choice is inherent in the structure of the world wide web.

New York Times

Animate

The user can click to see a process in action, or illustrate a concept with a moving diagram, or watch an event occur over time and space. Animations on demand can provide the ideas when we need them in in the form most appropriate to their understanding. When animation is combined with manipulation (see below), the result is even more interactive. Biology Place

Search and Find

Any time we can let the computer help us find what we're looking for, it seems more interactive. A multi-dimensional menu is a simple form of searching and finding. Searching by key word, and then choosing from a list of "hits," is a perhaps a bit more interactive. The more open and "natural" the search method, the more interactive it seems to the user. Hilton, B.U. Web Link

Buy and Sell

Making a commercial transaction &emdash; renting a car, buying a book, subscribing to a magazine &emdash; is an essential interaction between buyer and seller. As the internet turns commercial, this form of interactivity will proliferate. The more direct and quick and responsive the transaction, the more the user will perceive it as interactive. When buying and selling is combined with searching, finding, and choosing (see above), the result can be truly interactive.
Escapades, Amazon Books

Manipulate

Moving things around on the screen with the mouse is a viscerally interactive process. It allows the user to make complex selections and to see immediately the results of his choices. It gives the user the feeling that he is controlling the computer, and not just reacting to it. This manipulation must be more than the "joystick" controls that we find in computer action and Nintendo games, for it to provide the feel of interactivity.

Allergie, Internet Curriculum Connections Kit

Construct

A higher form of manipulation, here the user builds something on the screen by making choices, manipulating objects, and selecting alternatives. The results of the user's construction takes shape on the page as the user builds it, and may even take action based on the nature of the build. This most complex form of interactivity puts the user in the role of author, a complete about-face

GAP Kids

Question

Asking an expert, and getting a response immediately, or later through eMail, is a satisfying and very human process. Question and answer systems are a way to extend the function of a new media product to better fit the exact needs of an individual user. To be interactive, the answers need not be delivered by a live and listening respondent; rather, the program must develop in the mind of the user that her questions are indeed being answered.

Converse

Talk is the natural form of interaction for the human species. Conversation is what makes the telephone and eMail the most popular interactive technologies. Conversation can happen on a web site in synchronous (chat rooms) or asynchronous (threaded discussions) forms of conversation among its users.

 

Play

The Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget believed that it's through the interaction of play that we build our intellectual capacities. All of the forms of interaction listed above can include a component of play. Playing with objects or ideas or people is a good way to get to know them. Play may be the highest form of interactivity.

Voir questions pour la discussion.

Réalisation: James G. Lengel, Boston University College of Communication