What are some examples of Interactivity?
- A great conversation with interesting friends over a fine dinner
- Sharing stories
- Painting a picture or creating sculpture
- An afternoon of shopping with a close friend
- Rasing a child
- Landing a big deal
Never forget that interactivity is much larger than digital media.
OK, OK, what about some examples of Interactivity from the Internet! ...
Well, there aren't any.
Anything you see out there pales in comparison to a real experience. Your imagination is a better guide than looking at what others are doing.
Alright! Alright already....
...some examples of Interactivity from the Internet!Feedback and Control
- MonkeyMedia (Shockwave required)
- Mousejam
- Stedelijk Museum
- Visual Thesaurus
Action, reaction, and interaction are all different.
Your website doesn't need to be fully interactive in every spectrum.
The whole Internet is the medium, not just the Web! Look for more specialized applications and interactions in the near future.
Creativity and Productivity
Giving audiences or customers something to create is one of the most valuable possible experiences.
Media can help people be more creative and productive--especially in confidence.
Communication
- Motley Fool
- LiveHelp from iChat
- Placeware
- PurpleMoon
- talk.com
- Black Star Beer
- The Palace
- Hotmail (and other variants)
Humans are much more interacive than machines (if they are even capable of being interactive). A computer can be merely a medium through which two people can interact.
All communications is not necessarily interactive--only the best is. (TV vs. supper)
Communications is the beginning of Community. You cannot build a community without:
- A way to build and maintain an identity
- An ability to speak to others and listen to them
- A topic or common interest around which to gather
- An opportunity to generate content yourself.
Adaptivity
Adaptive Experiences are extremely valued and they are taken for granted in human social interaction.
Customization and Personalization are different.
Sites are able to adapt to user behavior and information more and more each year, but we have a long way to go.
Look to improv techniques to build the next generation of these experiences.
There are a few resources for learning more about interactivity (but not many):