Response: The Art of Interactivity

Crawford begins his work by exploring the overuse of the word ‘interactivity’, a word that is thrown around to describe almost every product in the market. He, thus, attempts to define it himself. Crawford metaphorically uses the actions of “listening”, “thinking” and “speaking” as the foundations of interaction. He states that interactivity requires two active participants and exists on a continuum rather than an either/or situation or (as its most often confused as) an intensified emotion or even simply an act of participation. Instead, it is almost a conversation wherein the three aforementioned actions are optimised.

Crawford also describes the role of interactivity designers as ones who have to consider both the form and function in creating their design. They work by maximising the strengths of their computer in the aforementioned actions (listening, thinking and speaking) and minimising their weaknesses. He urges that interactive designers, although should be learning from the past, must not cling firm to their foundations in “graphic design” but more importantly, incorporate “form with function”.