...(of a computer program or system) interacting with a human user, often in a conversational way, to obtain data or commands and to give immediate results or updated information:Thus, interactive design can be understood to mean the designing of, or the designed object, that involves the user in some way and requires them inputing information, that can be as simple as clicking a button. This sort of design can be found in program interfaces, games and quite often on websites.
The point of an interactive design is to:
- effectively communicate a system's interactivity and functionality
- defines behaviors that communicate a system's responses to user interactions
- reveals both simple and complex workflows
- informs users about system state changes
- prevents user error
The use of interactive design on websites has come to be a common thing these days, to the point that often one would come across an example and barely consider the fact that it is actually interactive. The previous post on AJAX began to address the idea of user interactivity with its example of images that can load without changing the page and the suggestion supplying search bar from Google. This sort of interactive design does not work or occur unless the user directly requests it, thus forcing the user to interact with the site. The advantage of this is that the websites load quickly which is often what users look for when 'surfing the net' and can most times guarantee multiple return visits.
Sometimes the same sort of idea is created using Adobe Flash. Primarily animation software, Flash has the ability to create whole websites that are fully interactive or to just make certain web elements (such as roll over buttons) that can be inserted into websites.
An example of an entirely flash animated website is 99Rooms. This is a beautifully made art project that which its creators describe as "...a unique internet art project that interweaves wall painting, photography, animation and sound...". While the website takes an extremely long time to load each 'room', the effectiveness of its design is immediately apparent. The focus of the interactive design of this website is more about the users emotional response to what they are seeing and hearing, but the need for them to click to continue on or to activate some hidden switch is what truly draws them in. This is because they develop an excitement of being able to click on something in the majority of the rooms and see a change occur and thus they continue on to the end of it.
As demonstrated by 99Rooms, often interactivity with websites can mean a deeper connection between the user and the website is formed and therefore a greater impact on the participant. 99Rooms demonstrates this as the user tends to simply click to the next room without studying the room in depth, where as when they must find the hidden switch the room is inspected top to toe. (Room 26 proves this alone, if the other rooms do not. Warning: it is not for the easily scared or jumpy types).
Despite all this sometimes the most simple function can be classed as interactive design. Using this blog as an example you'll notice that each post has a number of tags at the end of it. A tag is a descriptor added by a user to describe the content of what was posted. Through these, many connections and links can be formed, enabling the user to access more information than they perhaps would ahve in the first place. FOr example; by clicking on one of the tags attached to this post you can search the entire blog for all posts with that tag.
Interactive design combined with web design is vital to Web 2.0 as it is the users interaction with such websites that allows the web to expand. Wikipedia, for example, would not be quite as popular as it is, if its users did not have the ability to assist with the information it contains. And it is no doubt because of this interactivity that favor for Wikipedia spread, as it is not a boring old encyclopedia.
For another example of an interactive website head over to Whereis.com
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