What, exactly, is an interaction?
What I think right now
An interaction is not an event on a component. It is a relationship that changes state on both sides: the person, the system, and what passes between them. Human-computer interaction kept widening that definition for forty years without settling it, and the honest version of the field admits it is still open.
What would change my mind
A model of interaction that predicts behavior in interfaces nobody designed it for, without adding a new category each time it meets one.
Loose ends
- Where agency sits when a system acts between two people.
- Whether a relationship can be measured without being reduced to an event.
The trail
- Essay Why Interaction Became a Scientific Problem Four decades of human-computer interaction, and the question the field kept postponing: what, exactly, is an interaction?
- System Fundamental Engine A shared relational field represents bodies, relationships, constraints, and feedback; host adapters connect that model to interfaces and other surfaces.
Think I have this wrong? That is the most useful thing you could tell me.
Disagree with me