On 9/21/06, nescivi <nescivi_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Interactive is unfortunately most often used in the meaning of reactive: I
> push a button and the machine does this. A fixed mapping, which can be
> effective and useful, but is not interactive.
> Interactive would be that the machine may have a different response
> depending
> on the situation, past and so on.
Indeed, this what I was aiming at.
I'd go further, I'm inclined to follow Alex and require some amount of
equalness; at least the possibility of the interactive application taking
some sort of initiative. I might tap the numlock key twice rapidly to ask a
computer weather it's "awake" but typically my computers don't flash "hey,
are you still there?" on the screen.
Context-dependant responses as such aren't quite enough on their own to me.
My laundry machine will react on the "on" button in a way that depends on
it's current state (being wether it's already on) but I wouldn't call it
"interactive" at all (and typically those machines are nice exactly because
they save interaction about doing the laundry!)
I'm hesitant to go as far as Alex because to me playing with a dog gets
across as interactive but the dog (probably? hopefully?) doesn't approach my
intelligence but I suppose that depends on how you see that scale.
My main issue comes from "interactive" turning into a buzz-word and I think
this is what Eno was aiming at as well since he seems quite concerned about
"interactive CD-roms". "Interactive" has come to (often) mean that there is
a set of pleasingly implemented options, preferably operated by a mouse.
Expressive is yet another dimension. Expressivity can be reached both by
> reactive and interactive systems.
Quite so, I didn't mean to imply they ruled each other out or were dependant
in some way, I'm just getting the impression that "interactive" is often
meant to imply "expressive" but that often all you get is the possibility to
explore what option results in what reaction.
I suspect marketing departments like mixing those up because "expressive"
depends largely on the user and thus is harder to sell.
> PS, yeah, I subscribed to the list now too :)
>
How silly.
:¬p
Kas.
Received on Thu Sep 21 2006 - 19:59:49 BST