Give Me Interactivity Or Give Me Death

This article by Blather's Dave Walsh first appeared in The Irish Times of Monday, September 17, 2001, as Click here to communicate

Despite all the hype, online interactivity continues to leave us underwhelmed. Dave Walsh clicks into the world of multimedia to find out what 'interactive' means and why it fails to deliver on its promises while going too far to deliver the goods

Nearly a decade has passed since we were first treated to "interactive multimedia", buzzwords which arrived with the CD-ROM revolution and rapidly suffered overuse. While "multimedia" is relatively easy to define (the combined use of several media) - "interactivity" remains vague.

When they first appeared, interactive CD-ROMs were feted as more than just a receptacle. Apparently, some strange alchemical transformation had incurred during manufacture, imbuing the discs with occult qualities. Less facetiously, a CD could harbour a virtual world - from the practicality of a specialist graphical interface to the complexity of an adventure game.

It was the tip of a big marketing iceberg. In the years since, we have been showered with interactive websites, DVDs, games, art installations and TV shows such as Big Brother.

By the end of the 1990s, when the web had left behind the dull days of grey backgrounds and black text, interactive hype found a new home, describing whatever dotcom venture was dampening the palms of the excitable. Any website that had animations, games or other gimmicky moving bits was automatically labelled interactive. Websites using simple text and graphics were just, it seemed, websites. That vague distinction still persists today - a website using an animation product, such as Flash or Shockwave, is commonly assumed to be interactive, whereas anything more straightforward and simple is perceived as static.

In the parallel universe of the art world, the interactivity label is similarly bounced about, and seems to appear in the blurbs for any old installation that enjoys the use of a video projector or touch-screen.

Artist Sean Hillen, who has designed various electromechanical systems for his own art and for theatre, says "the mere mention of the word 'interactive' has me searching for my revolver - just because the word is so abused . . ."

What is interactivity anyway? The concept is nothing new - human communication is the ultimate form of interaction, the yardstick for all imitators. In the context of electronic communication, interactivity describes a system or program that maintains an exchange with a user, alternately accepting input and outputting response.

This definition may mean that any website is interactive. The user clicks a link - the page changes to another, and hoorah! Interactivity! Not very exciting, but it's the truth.

In comparison, a website that proclaims interactivity, but only offers an array of slow-to-download animations, strobing mouse-overs and cheesy sounds, is arguably no more interactive than a simple website - just more bells and whistles.

Surely interactivity should consist of more than gimmicks? Why not an upfront, personal, engaging experience? On one level (it does seem that there are actual levels of interactivity, running from passive experience through to "true" interactivity), the average e-commerce site offers a personal interaction. A customer orders a product online, then receives it by post.

This kind of interaction seems more inclined to facilitate a relationship between the buyer and the seller, rather than between the user and the medium. A mediated interaction, if you like.

It starts getting weird when the online "shopkeeper" plies the consumer with specific products, based on an assertion of their buying habits. This approach can seem a little crude, bizarrely inaccurate and sometimes patronising - and arguably a form of mercantile stalking. Simply put, this works on the basis of "you bought X, therefore you must like Y".

A visit to online bookstore Amazon prompts questions on how corporations try to assess an individual's taste. Why are are they recommending Harry Potter books to me? Because I bought the album Central Reservation by singer Beth Orton. Where's the connection? Other people that have bought a Beth Orton Album have also bought a Harry Potter book - apparently people who like Beth Orton will like Harry Potter.

Imagine a morning dash to the local shop. The shopkeeper has filled a rack beside the checkout with items that he thinks you, and you only, will buy. The selection is based on everything you have previously purchased, and your profile is compared with other "similar" customers. When you have skedaddled up the street with your milk and newspapers, he restocks the "personal" rack, aimed at the next customer.

Another level of electronic interactivity can be found in bulletin boards, forums, chatrooms - any kind of website that involves people communicating.

Such discussions would not exist in their current state without the input of their users. The forums on P45.net provide an example - postings are uploaded by the users - other people visit, read the postings, reply, and on it goes.
Another spin on this kind of interactivity is www.everything2.org: the content is made up of input from community members, while the company behind it provides the vehicle.

Kieran Hanrahan of Modern Business Management Services, reckons that "interactivity in website design is down to facilitating any form of communication and feedback between website visitors and the website owners or online community members. Moderation acts as a brake on interactivity. Discussion boards that are moderated in any form - even the deletion of expletives - are therefore censored.

You can argue that a sort of hierarchy of interactive 'potential' exists across the range of web elements that allow for communication either on \discussion boards, chatrooms etc.\ or alongside the websites \e-mail\."
These examples of interactivity, along with personalised shopping baskets, could be cordoned off under the heading of "computer-enhanced communication", or mediated interaction. The interactive element of the sites is a means to communication with other humans, not an end in itself.

So what of a truly interactive experience, in which a single user communicates with an electronic entity, achieving some level of user satisfaction? This is, perhaps, what many people unwittingly expect from technology, and it could have us straying into the murky ontological minefield of artificial intelligence.

At its most simplistic level, a truly interactive technology is one that constantly responds to changing conditions, such as the actions of the user. Take, for example, a simple survey: on paper, it is completely static and premeditated; but in an online version, the choice of the second question is decided by the answer to the first. This still requires the creator of the survey to write up a finite multitude of varying scenarios for the survey, rather than relaying on a computer to think them up on the fly.

In terms of technology, interactivity gives the illusion of freedom and choice. No matter how flexible an interactive technology claims to be, the limits are always defined by the creator. The results can seem no more adventurous than a child's Fisher-Price activity centre. When designers and website owners becomes bogged in artifice and techno-fetishism, the sensual, practical or commercial aspects of their respective projects are swept aside.

"I think there's an intoxication with the potential of electronics in particular, not least because most people have no understanding of it," says Hillen. "Like the mythical primitives who go 'one bean, two beans, loads of beans', they think that all the hype about electronic brains is not far from the mark, whereas my understanding has us a very long way from it."

Keith Jordan, technical director at Rawshot New Media, a Dublin-based online games and entertainment firm, sums it all up: "To me, interactive means that both the site visitor and the site are actively engaged in communicating and exchanging the two experiences of immersion and captivation in a dynamic environment." Interactive technology should be involving and personal - like successful film, theatre or music, it should win over the human user by reacting and anticipating their needs. Performance is naturally interactive - the musician engages the audience, the audience reacts (however favourably), the musician responds, and so on.

To return to the example of Big Brother - love it or hate it - it successfully manages to tackle the concept of interactive multimedia. The audience has control in the progression of the plot, viewing and voting through television, the Internet and by telephone. Pre-recorded adventure programs, such as Treasure Island, have little hope of competing.

At a basic level, interactivity in new media indicates our ability to obtain a response from a metaphorical environment. But in a truly interactive environment, the visitor should have the power to modify this environment in an original and individual manner, and with lasting consequences.


Further Reading:
What is Interactivity anyway?

Interactivity: A Forgotten Art?

Interactivity in the Context of Designed Experiences

What Is Interaction Design and What Does It Mean to You?



Posted by daev at September 17, 2001 8:29 PM