I think interaction is a process that takes input from the outside world (human or nonhuman factors), processes the corresponding information, and finally outputs the response to the user. It also needs to have specific functions as an item to make life easier or entertain living beings.
As Chris Crawford says in the book The Art of Interactive Design, Chapter “What Exactly is Interactivity” that it defines “interaction” as “a cyclic process in which two actors alternately listen, think, and speak” (Crawford 5). This is an interesting metaphor that compares the interaction device/technology to actual human beings. To accomplish this process, it requires the design of the interactive technology to be able to take “input,” “process” information, and “output” the response as Igoe and O’Sullivan defines similarly in “Introduction” of Introduction to Physical Computing that “interaction: input, output, and processing” (Igoe and O’Sullivan XX). Besides, according to Crawford, he “concerned with interactivity that has some blood in its veins” (Crawford 6). Therefore, I believe entertainment or utility is also significant to the design of interaction. Otherwise, it is of no use.
Based on the understanding of interaction, I researched two projects. The first one is “#WinningHalloween costume execution.” This project shows many fancy costumes to the audience at a little cost as a form of contemporary art. According to the main characteristics of “interaction:” “input, output, processing, and functional,” this project only fulfills the criteria of “output and functional.” It only gives information to the audience which is showing the fancy clothing to them and make them happy and feeling excited. Even though it is a successful art performance and is super creative that is so fascinating, and it still lacks the most important part of “interaction,” “input.” Therefore, I could not regard it as an interactive project but rather an art.
Another project I researched is “Artificial Arcadia – Measured and adjustable landscapes.” Based on the changing geographic factor, real climate change data, and human’s moving routine while experiencing the project, the white ceiling automatically moves up and down, showing the relationship between humans and nature. This is a successful example of “interaction.” It takes input from both human and nonhuman. After processing the information, the ceiling moves as a response to give output to the audience. More importantly, this is quite interesting for humans to experience, and it arouses humans to concern about our relationship with nature and cares about climate change. Therefore, it entertains humans and has social functions.
For our group’s project “Doglar” – a device that fully takes care of the dog for the dog owner – I think we successfully applied the definition of “interaction” to our design. We want it to receive information from human and nonhuman, then after processing, gives output that is significant or entertaining. We think it is a problem that many dog owners are having trouble taking care of their dogs and balance it with their own lives. If we can design an interactive device to assist them, it must be significant, hopefully entertaining. We design the device to take input from the dog. However, at first, we output most of the responses to the owner, though phone applications, to ask the owner to take further actions. We then realized that phones are not the best output because it requires another interactive device, which means we can make it smarter. So, we redesigned most of our functions to output to the dog directly. For instance, when the device detects that the dog is hungry, instead of only notify the owner on his/her phone, the food dispenser will automatically open. By this optimization, we believe that the “doglar” is more interactive and smarter.
Works Cited
Crawford, “What Exactly is Interactivity,” The Art of Interactive Design, pp. 1-5.
Igoe and O’Sullivan, “Introduction,” Introduction to Physical Computing.