According to Crawford, interaction is, “interaction: a cyclic process in which two actors alternately listen, think, and speak.” In more technical terms, “If we want to get academic, I suppose we could replace listen, think, and speak with input, process, and output….” After reading his text, my interpretation of interaction is the receiving, processing, and communication between two or more parties/objects.
One interactive project that aligns with my definition of interaction is Alias. Alias is an electronic device that connects to a simple app in which users can “ train Alias to react on a custom wake-word/sound, and once trained, Alias can take control over your home assistant by activating it for you. When you don’t use it, Alias will make sure the assistant is paralyzed and unable to listen by interrupting its microphones.”
This is an example of interaction because Alias receives information (the custom wake word sound), processes/thinks about it, then makes a decision (yes- turn the mic on, or no- paralyze system). This is a low-level interaction because the message received is simple, the thought process is binary, and the final decision is either yes or no.
Most of our interactions with computers are low-level interactions. “In the case of most desktop computers, this means a mouse, a keyboard, a monitor, and speakers. To such a computer, we might look like a hand, with one finger, one eye, and two ears” (Igoe and O’Sullivan). Igoe and O’Sullivan argue for more and varied types of interaction, which would lead to higher level interactions.
One “interactive” project that does not align with my definition of interaction is Phos.
“Phōs is an interactive web project by Daria Jelonek which deals with the complexity of light, room and time. It shows 24 hours of light in different places of the world. It is both an homage to natural light and aesthetic experience of light.”
The reason Phos does not fit my definition of interaction is because it is simply composed of flashing images of light. As Crawford says, talking to a brick wall is not interaction, because the wall is not interpreting your message, and the wall is not giving you an intelligible response. Similarly the rooms and videos in Phos do not process nor communicate information back to us; these inanimate and static objects do nothing with the information they receive from us. Videos tend to generally be non-interactive, because they are pre-recorded, and are unable to receive the information (ie. our reactions) that we send to it.
Phos likely got its “interactive” tag because it involves multimedia projections, is time-based, and allows audience members to actually be a part of/step into the project/artwork/ exhibition. Interactive nowadays is often used to describe exhibits where people can utilize other senses and touch and command parts of the exhibit. However, for Phos, people are not given the opportunity to influence or edit the video playing, hence, Phos does not align with my definition of interaction.
Our group focused on creating a more realistic, educational tool for those who read Braille. The project responded to my new understanding of high and low-level interaction, and my realization that there is still a vast amount of input and output that can be utilized in interaction. While the current Braille system is based around static, non-differential series of raised dots, we designed our Braille system around an intelligent fabric of the year 2119, which would change/mimic textures, allowing the user to have an added dimension (higher level of interaction) of touch experience by envisioning and connecting other life experiences to words’ meanings. Helen Keller’s teacher, Anne Sullivan, taught Helen Keller to read this way, placing Keller’s hands under a running faucet to teach Keller the meaning of the word “water”.
We didn’t alter the dot system used by Braille, because Braille is already a very accessible, well-established system that is easy to use, and because Braille was created based on the fact that blind people had a hard time “reading” raised alphabetic letters. Things that work for the average person may not work for those with disabilities, and if a designer only focuses on his own mindset/ideas, without considering the needs of their user base, he will never create an improved product.
One issue that our project could focus more on is accessibility. We geared our project to 2nd-4th graders because of the educational aspect, but our project could potentially expand to create an even more accessible world for the vision impaired. One way we could do this is instead of creating a system based on touch, we could create a network of sound, expanding and changing the function of our system to suits blind people’s needs beyond the classroom. For example, we could place our systems around traffic lights, guiding the blind by voice when they are crossing the road.
The readings and group project greatly increased my understanding of interaction, and will greatly impact the way I design interactive projects in the future.
Works Cited
https://www.creativeapplications.net/objects/alias-a-teachable-parasite-for-your-smart-assistant/
https://s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/ima-wp/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/08/05164121/The-Art-of-Interactive-Design-brief.pdf
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uviCK0V71cQpA76PV9PK03Df14vcsd0y/view