Response to Crawford:

In the reading, Crawford defines interactivity as a process where two actors listen, think, and speak. This definition is interesting to me as I use to think interactivity needs only the speaking(acting) from one party while the other can just listen and think . For example, I use to consider any media interactive, like a film, because they all somehow deal with the audience’s five senses (now that I think of it, the engaging with senses like listening and sight only has little connection with interactivity). The reading make me realize the importance of thinking and decision for all parties to exist in interactivity. I can’t say that process can’t be considered interactive if one participant lack a deep level thinking, but it is truly a more interesting subject of study if all parties perform a thorough thinking process before they decide how to react.

Response to Norman:

The second reading talks about some fundamental principles for interactive design which I find interesting. ( By the way, many of the example shown in this reading contrast the definition from Crawford’s reading as many devices mentioned here lack deep level thinking or any thinking at all.) 

As a CS major, whenever I approach a problem, I tend to use what I call a “back-end” approach – -like the coding, basic logic for coding etc. This reading make me think that the “front-end” part is also very crucial to the success of any human-centered interactive product. The design of front-end (like user interface of software, web page. ..etc) is also a combination of art and science. I tend to focus mainly on the “affordances” as trying to realize all the functions of a device and lay them blindly on the interface, much alike to the app designer example in the reading.

Signifiers and mapping are actually very important to user experience. I as a user will realize and appreciate the thoughts put into any good design very soon after I start to use them. These terms shed light to my consideration for any future design I’m going to make and I’ll definitely revisit them later in my career.