Transforming Grounds

Just got a message that said that Lars-Erik Janlert's and mine article " The meaning of interactivity —some proposals for definitions and measures " will be published in the HCI Journal . Here is the abstract of the article: "New interactive applications, artifacts and systems are constantly being added to our environments, and there are some concerns in the HCI research community that increasing interactivity might not be just to the good. But what is it that is supposed to be increasing, and how could we determine whether it is? In order to approach these issues in a systematic and analytical fashion, relying less on common intuitions and more on clearly defined concepts and when possible quantifiable properties, we take a renewed look at the notion of interactivity and related concepts. The main contribution of this article is a number of definitions and terms, and the beginning of an attempt to frame the conditions of interaction and interactivity. Based on t...

It seems as if a lot of people today see the world as difficult place to fully understand. The complexity of reality is frequently mentioned. Our culture is complex. Contemporary technology is definitely complex. And our everyday lives are complex. The notion of 'complexity' is in many cases used as a negative descriptor. meaning that things are difficult, hard to understand, and that it presents challenges to us. It seems as if the solution instead would be things are simple and easy to understand. I see this strive for simplicity as a mistake or at least not as trivially correct. My colleague Lars-Erik Janlert and I commented on this in our article "Complex Interaction" when we wrote: "Complexity is not just a necessary evil and not just instrumentally good. Given the right circumstances, encounters with the very complexity of some systems and behaviors can give us fullness, entertainment, aesthetic and sublime experiences, spur and develop our abilities and...