Interactivity - beyond mere interfaces

Now that we have reviewed (in our earlier blog posts) how Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon are advancing interactivity technology, let's take the time to return to basics.

Many people confuse interactivity design with interface design. In this post, I wish to present a simple table that would clarify the difference between interactivity and interfaces.

Beyond Interfaces to Interactivity

	Interface	Interactivity
What is it?	The point of access to some functionality. Examples: Radio Button, Text Box, Hyperlink	The whole experience of doing stuff.  Examples:User Poll, Mind Map, 3D Navigational Space
Objective	Make it intuitive and easy to use functionality of a software	Make it engaging and compelling experience surrounding a functionality
How it is implemented?	Programming using Javascript, HTML, APIs and Flash	Quick and easy configuration without programming

In short, interactivity is a giant leap forward from mere interfaces. Any thoughts?

Interactivity - New Possibilities with Facebook Technology

In our ongoing 'Interactivity - New Possibilities'  series of posts, we reviewed the key recent technologies from Amazon, Apple and Google that impact the world of interactivity. One company on the technology scene that's on everyone's mind these days is Facebook.  Here are the top 3 nifty Facebook  technologies I am excited about: Timeline, Open Graph and iFrame Page Tab.

1. Timeline: Going Down the Memory Lane
As many of you who spend time on Facebook probably already know, the Facebook Timeline is a great way to re-organize the look of your profile page. It presents an easy way to share your updates with your network, telling your story as it happened.

Timeline-integrated apps make the trip down the memory lane more interesting. A case in point is TripAdvisor, a timeline-integrated app. Say you go on TripAdvisor and post a review of a winery there. TripAdvisor will ask if you want to share your review on Facebook. That part is not novel. The fun starts when you allow the review to be shared: it not only appears on your friends' news feeds, and tickers but  also becomes part of your Timeline.

The aggregation and reporting that Timeline-integrated apps provide make the information more relevant. Seemingly inconsequential events such as travel to a city become interesting when an app connects the dots as it were, and shows interesting information such as the farthest you have travelled, distance travelled and so on.

2. Open Graph : Create Timeline-Integrated Apps

Open Graph stands to take the Facebook 'Like' to a whole new level by diversifying Like. Here is how it works.  If you’ve charted a jogging course in a fitness application, you can click a button that indicates you “Ran this!” Your workout will reflect in your ticker, newsfeed and timeline. This adds diversity to the monolithic 'Like' response, giving it a greater human touch.

App designers who use Facebook API can now develop timeline-friendly apps using Open Graph. The new apps give users a way to share more than just “likes.”

3. iFrame Page Tab: Goodbye FBML
Facebook’s newly announced support of iFrames in Page tabs, and the phasing out of its popular Static FBML application, is an exciting step towards more happening Facebook pages.

The iFrames allow developers to write HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other Web programming code, to create highly customized and potentially interactive pages. For example, fans can see one version of your messaging and others see another.  The support for iFrames has been greeted enthusiastically by developers who found FBML constraining. From June the FBML support will be stopped completely.

Social interactions can be successfully harnessed for spreading the word and exploiting network effects. With Open Graph, app developers now have a powerful platform to provide novel ways for people to connect and do things online with friends. Facebook pages can leverage the interactive capabilities of web programming through iFrame tabs.

Interactivity - New Possibilities with Google Technology

In our ongoing 'Interactivity - New Possibilities'  series of posts, we reviewed the key recent technologies from Amazon and Apple that impact the world of interactivity. Here are the top 3 recent Google  technologies I am excited about: 

1. Instant Search, Social Search: New Innovations
Most of us have experienced the convenience of Google's instant search - we're almost used to it. Social search makes the search experience richer for those people who have a social network on Google+ (more about that later). It shows you search results - text, photos and more -  from your network. It enables you to find people and pages you may be interested in following.

2. Google+ : Social Network
When it first came out, many people described Google+ as a cross between Facebook and Twitter. The social network has gained traction. It is the bedrock of Google's social search strategy. 

3. Android - Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich : Incremental Innovation
Nearly 700,000 Android  OSs are activated every day on tablets and smart phones. With this momentum, Google has worked at improving features of its Android OS over time. Multitasking, voice input, resizable widgets are some examples. There is a thriving Android Market for applications.

When we look at these three technologies, here is what we find. As search is a key strength of Google, it is natural to expect innovation in that area from Google, and it is good to see greater interactivity in search, also the way in which it leverages Google+. In the operating systems space, Chrome OS did not go far, but Android with its growing user base seems promising for developers who want to build interactive applications.

Interactivity - New Possibilities with Apple Technology

Here are the top three recent Apple technologies I am excited about: iBooks, Siri and iCloud.

1. iBooks 2.0: Multitouch Textbooks
iBooks was reportedly Apple's #1 iCloud-enabled app, it was developed even before iCloud was announced. The idea of iBooks was to let you download a book, synchronize bookmarks, highlights and notes between devices. With iBooks 2.0, Apple goes much further. iBooks now supports images, videos, links and other media - valuable new elements that make textbooks interactive. The textbooks are encoded in HTML5 and Javascript. The word goes that Apple has three major publishers onboard - Pearson, McGraw Hill and Houghton Mifflin. It's also said that all iBooks will sell for under $15.

Apple's iBooks Author is a wysiwyg editor app that lets you create and publish searchable multitouch books for iPad. It appears to have fairly basic authoring capability with preview and publishing to pdf or HTML5. The level of interactivity is also basic, and includes custom glossary, quizzes and review questions, study cards, thumbnail navigation, annotations, highlighting, notes, multitouch interface and embedded graphics.

2. Siri : Conversational Interaction
Siri is Apple's intelligent voice recognition application. Siri is an intelligent assistant for iPhone 4S that makes calls, sends text or sets an alarm for you. It can not only understand when you say "Where can I get Italian food nearby" but also talks back. The overall experience is like having a conversation.

That said, there are many people who are not yet fully comfortable with the idea of talking interfaces. There are several inhibitors - accents included.

3. iCloud : Seamlessly Integrated User Experience Across Devices

Apart from saving the hassle of keeping a phone and a computer in sync, iCloud goes further by allowing a whole new set of features in applications that create a seamless user experience. You can edit a document on a PC and continue your editing where you left off on an iPad. You can take a picture on an iPhone and see it instantly through PhotoStream on a MacBook Pro.

Needless to say, you enjoy the benefits of iCloud as long as you live in the Apple world. You must use Apple devices.

Although these new technologies come with their limitations, they signal a beginning in the right direction from an interactivity perspective. Also there are interesting parallels between Apple's technologies discussed here and Amazon's technologies discussed in an earlier post in this blog. It will be interesting to see how the competitive games get played.

Interactivity - New Possibilities with Amazon Technology

Here are the top 3 recent Amazon technologies I am excited about: Kindle Fire, Kindle Format 8 and Kindle Cloud Reader. 

1. Kindle Fire
Amazon's foray into the tablet computing space begins with Kindle Fire. Built on Android operating system, this tablet sports a touch-screen,  provides cloud storage and gives access to thousands of movies, shows, songs, books, apps, games and more. Its Silk Browser is ultra fast because it is cloud-accelerated. It uses a split browser architecture that is smart enough to decide a caching strategy based on network conditions, page loading time, already cached content etc.

2. Kindle Format 8 (KF8) 
KF8 is Amazon’s next generation file format supported by Kindle Fire. KF8 offers new features and enhancements – including HTML5 and CSS3 support that publishers can use to create all types of books. According to Amazon, KF8 adds over 150 new formatting capabilities, including drop caps, numbered lists, fixed layouts, nested tables, callouts, sidebars and Scalable Vector Graphics - opening up more opportunities to create Kindle books that readers will love.   Kindle provides tools to convert from traditional formats such as HTML, XHTML and EPUB. Kindle Direct Publishing service also lets authors publish in KF8 format.

3. Kindle Cloud Reader
This software app allows you to buy once and read everywhere. The Reader works not only on all Kindle devices, but also iPads and PCs.Users get a seamless experience as they switch from one device to another. In addition, with Kindle Cloud Reader, people can continue reading books using their web browsers whether online or offline.

Together these three technologies provide a promising platform for creating interactive reading experiences. The Kindle Fire brings together the power of the cloud and the promise of a tablet interface. KF8 paves a way for building moderately interactive content and publishing it using Amazon-provided tools. Finally, the Kindle Cloud Reader creats a standard and seamless reading experience across a wide array of devices.