Introduction

To begin, interactivity is defined as the interaction between people and computers or other machines through a user interface, the interaction between people, or interaction between computers – through software, hardware, and network. The interaction of the two things (people and computers, people and people) must change the content of the things being interacted with. Interactivity allows you (the user or audience) to change and manipulate the content. You have some control of the content meaning there is action from both sides. The user adds feedback, and the other side acknowledges the feedback and changes the content. A change must happen to the content in some way for it to be considered interactive. Simply put, interactivity is content being changed based on the feedback provided by the audience of the content.

Even though interactivity can be used in person, it is found more commonly in digital spaces. Which is why it is a chapter in this textbook. Knowing what interactivity is can take content to the next level, since interactivity is about getting feedback and changing the content. This can improve the content you are making, like a website for example. Knowing what it is not can help you catch others lying about their content being interactive. Overall, interactivity is in this textbook to help you take your content to levels it wouldn’t reach otherwise.

Tips and Tricks

Seeing a long definition can overwhelm people. So here are some examples to better understand just what interactivity is. The first set of examples will be person-to-person interaction. An example is stand-up comedy, as a lot of comedians do crowd work. Someone says something and the comedic goes off of what that person said. Maybe they add jokes to what the audience member commented or go into a funny story that the audience member reminded the comedian of. Another example is live theater. Based on the audience, the content of the show changes. Improve is the same way too as it is all based on what the audience gives the people to improve off of. Notice how the content is being changed based on the feedback provided, that’s interactivity.

The next and last set of examples will be person-to-computer. This set is the most common example of interactivity. The biggest example of this is Wikipedia. People go in and add content to the pages for many reasons. Maybe it is a page on an actress and she was in a new movie. Maybe more things got revealed about a historical event. Maybe people commented on the page that there was a typo. The point is, that the content can be changed based on what is going on in the world. This idea goes for comments or threads on social media platforms. Some platforms let you edit posts, so if people comment about typos the post can change. Speaking of platforms, some platforms alter when you add posts. For example, you can have WordPress show your most recent blogs. So every time you create a new blog the page changes.

In general, to help understand interactivity, ask yourself if the content was altered or changed. Was something added to the content? Was it edited from its original post? Was it an experience that could only happen then and there based on what was said? Did the content go in a different direction based on what someone did? If the content was changed based on some sort of interaction (a comment, new information, an event) then it is interactive.

Debates

Now that there is a better understanding of interactivity, some of the debates about interactivity can be talked about. One of the debates is interactivity versus engagement. Some programs claim they are interactive, however all you can do is click around. It is engaging if it catches your attention and lets you play around on the device, but the content itself doesn’t change. Remember that if the content can’t be altered by feedback it isn’t interactive. This brings up the other debate on whether choice games are interactive or not. It may depend on the type of choice game. Telltale games gave the illusion of choice. A lot of choices were about saving one character or the other. Say you save person one. Person two dies from not saving them, but later in the game person one also dies. Yes, you get more scenes with person one. However, they end up dying sooner than carrying on the entire game. For that reason, I don’t think Telltale games are interactive.

There are some games where the choices aren’t so this or that. In Heavy Rain characters are trying to solve murders. There are challenges that the characters go through, and if you mess up the challenges there are consequences depending on how bad you mess up. Telltale want’s certain people to live, so if you mess up you restart. Heavy Rain, you mess up your character can go through a range of things like bruises, a lost finger, or even die. There is no restarting, you just jump to a different character in the story until you run out of characters and then it is game over. This gives more choices of things that can happen. Your character can get hurt or die at any challenge. However, it still isn’t interactive. You don’t have control over what happens. It isn’t like you wanted to go into those dangerous situations, you were made to. You were forced to go through difficult challenges with risks of death. The content doesn’t change as the story was made to happen a certain way. Think back to the tips and tricks examples. With stand-up comedy, the jokes were always new based on the audience choosing to talk to the comedian or not. There wasn’t a set ending to the show, there was no predetermined path. The content really changed based on what was mentioned.

This isn’t what happens with choice games. It might seem like an interaction between you and the game. However, the choices you make do not change the game. The game isn’t going to be different as it was made with certain endings in mind. There might be multiple endings, but there aren’t an endless amount of choices or directions. There are a limited number of paths the game can take, unlike the interactivity examples talked about in the above section. Choice game content doesn’t change based on how you play the game. Whoever made the game programmed it to be this or that. You choose this, and then this happens. You choose that, and then that happens. Meaning that the content doesn’t change because it was already made to do that. For the Telltale example, the story was made with both of those characters dying, thus you don’t really save anyone. It makes the game easier to program than having too many different paths. You get the illusion of choice as it isn’t like anything is possible. The game has to follow a story no matter what choices you make. You were meant to make certain choices that walked you through predetermined paths.

Importance

Knowing about interactivity can help content improve. Getting feedback from your audience can let you understand what works and what doesn’t. Feedback can let you know if there is something wrong with the content, like a typo. An outside person (not you or your friends) looking over your work might catch things you didn’t notice. We all have overlooked mistakes in our lives. Listening to the feedback on the content can help it get better. Knowing about interactivity versus engagement can help you not get tricked by others claiming their stuff is interactive. No one wants to be caught in a false claim, so knowing about interactivity is helpful.

You then can see how to make your content interactive, knowing that interactivity is about content being able to be altered, and thus making your content more engaging. If your audience knows you listen to them they might enjoy your content more, because they get to interact with you. It makes the environment and community more fun and inviting. Makes the content and the content creator look better if the content can change for the better. If the content always stays the same, even with mistakes like typos, that just looks bad. Everything can use a change now and then, especially if there are things to be fixed. Overall, interactivity is important to talk about because it improves the content being made for the better and keeps the community engaged.