The following is a reflexion on two readings: “The Art of Interactive Design” by Chris Crawford (Chapter 1 and 2) and Bret Victor’s, “A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design”.
I believe the authors dedicated a fair amount of time on defining what Interactivity is, and what it is not, however I would like to expand more on my personal opinion about what interactivity is (or at least should be for my personal interpretation).
In my opinion the differentiation that is being done by Chris Crawford regarding Interaction Designers and User Interface Designers is too focussed on age and capabilities, but he doesn’t talk about the fact that a User Interface Designer can also be a, Interaction Designer (and viceversa), I’m not saying this should be the rule, but it definitely is a very recurrent mix of capabilities.
It might come from the fact that the profession has changed so much over the years and probably it was different when the book was released, however I believe that the mixture between Mathematics and Engineering with Arts and Design could definitely be achieved by one professional.
In general I believe the concept of Physical Computation should go beyond just understanding who communicates with who, and expand more to the analogy of how the interactivity could augment the senses of a human being. It goes beyond trying to understand if a rug is interactive ir not. The power of technology should be used as a tool to provide humans with more developed senses and enable them to achieve their goals, overcoming their disabilities (mental and physical) with the help of Physical Computing.
Last but not least, I want to take a moment to talk about an issue that I am deeply concerned about. As a women being involved in Engineering and Tech environments I have faced sexism in a lot of different expressions, verbal, phycological and physical. Since we are in an era of women empowerment I have started to realize the material that we read and the videos that we watch as part of a class or our professional education should encourage us as women to overcome our mental barriers and also the industrie stereotypes.
I found the introductory video to be very sexist, I am aware that my Latin American descent might be influencing me to interprete the material in a different way, however I believe a blog that allow us as students to express our reactions is a great tool for us to also raise our voices regarding important issues in the society.
Male characters in the video
Male character winking this eye to a girl
Female character explicitly saying no.
Female character hitting a wall
Male character making fun of a female character
Male character blowing a kiss
Female character clearly rejecting the male's offenses.
This might me my own “Rant” however I strongly believe that it is important to empower women in our industrie and the materials that we use during our lessons are a great point to start that women empowerment.