Using Interactivity to Fight Teenage Obesity

In Silliconvalley.com, Mike Cassidy recently did a story on Hopelab, a nonprofit technology incubator in Redwood City. Hopelab is working on a unique idea to reduce teenage obesity.

Hopelab built gDitty, a product that grew out of an interest in combining technology games with health care. Philanthropist Pam Omidyar came up with the vision when she started HopeLab in 2001.

The idea of gDitty appears - as is the case with all good innovations - quite simple. Cassidy reports that gDitty is an accelerometer-based device that kids can carry in their pocket or clip on their clothes. The gDitty measures and stores data on any moderate to vigorous movement. The data is then uploaded to a Web site where kids now testing the device can see how their exertion is increasing or decreasing. They can also compare their scores with other users (identified by screen names) across the country.

And kids can cash in points for prizes, such as iTunes or Amazon gift cards.Because the gDitty measures all significant movement, kids rack up points for walking, climbing stairs or doing household chores.

Children in test groups increased their daily activity by 35 percent, the company reports.

Ingenuous, isn't it? What I find most noteworthy about this product idea is that it exploits interactivity in the teenager's natural environment. To provide input to the program, the user has to do nothing special, just move about as usual.

This is a point to note for web designers, presentation makers, e-learning developers and other dialog creators. Blend interactivity naturally into the environment of your target audience - be it a blog, a web page, a slide deck or an online course - and the audience will love it. For example, if you want to poll your audience in the middle of a presentation, embed the poll in your PowerPoint. If you wish to encourage conversation amongst site visitors, have a discussion area right there on the web page. Whenever possible, avoid switching to another application for polling, or sending the web site visitor to another page for discussions. Preserve context, and interactions become more natural and meaningful.

The future of interactivity

“The world is flat”, proclaims the title of Thomas Friedman’s international bestseller which analyzes globalization. While the title metaphorically refers to a level playing field amongst businesses everywhere, it also seems to allude unintentionally to the growing number of flat screens we keep looking at in the course of a day. Between the laptop, smart phone, TV, gaming console, book reader and navigator device, we increasingly endeavor to experience life through these screens, driven by software. Good news for software developers? Depends.

People don't just want to stare at screens. They want a two-way dialog. They want to actively participate in things happening online, and not just watch passively. Little wonder, then, that people are increasingly demanding interactivity in this serious business of dealing with the world through screens. Software developers should understand the implications of this shift. As a food for thought, I have put together ten predictions for the not-so-distant future of interactivity.

10. Users will get a wider choice of input mechanisms. For those of you who use the iPhone or the the Wii, you know what I mean. It’s not just the keyboard and mouse anymore. From accelerometers and multi-touch screens to 3D cameras, there are a host of new input mechanisms vying for mainstream usage.

9. Less will be more. Interactivity designers will have to make life simpler for users. As buy decisions are increasingly shifting to end-users, minimizing user learning curve will become a priority. That means, the less a user needs to learn, the better.

8. Broad platform support will be crucial. At least in the near future, developers will have to make sure they build interactivity according to each client platform’s capabilities, form factor and preferred plug-in. There seems no consensus on a standard in sight.

7. New applications will emerge. In areas where knowledge exchange is at a premium, interactivity will gain momentum. E-learning, presentations, and web pages appear to be good starting points. Other applications will emerge.

6. Technology will evolve. Rapid interactivity will go mainstream, because not everyone wants to write programs, and yet everyone wants control over the look and feel of interactivity through customization.

5. Composite applications will thrive. There will be opportunities to integrate interactivity using mash-ups and embeddable components. Both on-premise and SaaS applications will present such opportunities in the enterprise and consumer software space.

4. Customer interaction will go online. Increasingly, a lot of interaction with customers and other stakeholders will be forced to shift online, and this will create a pull for interactivity.

3. Diverse platforms will support interactivity. While primarily the PC will continue to be best suited for interactive experiences, other devices will also afford unique opportunities for interactivity based on their inherent capabilities and usage patterns.

2. Web 2.0 will increasingly go interactive. User generated content will embrace interactivity through embedded social interactions.

1. End-users will gain the most. As interactivity goes mainstream, bringing about more engaging and meaningful online experiences, the end-user will be the ultimate winner.

Interactivity drives interaction. Get the difference?

Is it interaction or interactivity? A lot of people use the two terms interchangeably. In this post, let's explore the subtle difference between the two.

Interaction is mutual action between at least two participants. For example, computer software and its user can have interaction.

Some interactions are trivial, for example, click on a button. Some interactions are non-trivial, for example, walk along a street and look around the houses using Google Map.

Any artifact (such as a piece of software) is interactive if it allows for interaction. For example, the digger game is interactive because it allows for interaction.

Interactivity is the property of an artifact that allows for interaction. Thus, an online discussion forum software has interactivity, because it allows for interaction between users.

Over time, the word interactivity has also come to describe a software artifact that allows non-trivial interaction. For example, an online flip-book is an interactivity. Its user can turn the pages like a real book, go to any page directly, close the book and so forth.

Which means, the flip-book not only has interactivity, but it is an interactivity. Interactivity, then, is not just a property, but also an artifact possessing the property.

Therefore, we can use its plural to denote many artifacts that exhibit interactive behavior. For example, a web page that contains a flip-book and a mind-map can be said to have two interactivities in it.

Your spell-checker might complain about interactivities, but there is a way out. I have already added the word to my dictionary, and so can you.

There is a simple way to remember all this: Interactivity drives interaction.

You are welcome to explore the definitions using the interactive glossary in this blog.

An Interactive Glossary of Interactivity Terms

For some time now, I've wondered what is the best way to put together clear definitions of the various terms used in describing interactivity technology. I figured an interactive glossary would work best, so here it goes. Just click on any term and see its explanation in the box below.



Using Raptivity, it took about fifteen minutes to build this glossary and to insert it in this blog.

A brief history of interactivity

Here is a step-by-step illustration of the evolution of content delivery applications - from the old days of teletype green terminals spouting stock quotes, to today's highly immersive and interactive applications.



The move from text to graphics was a big step in content delivery applications. If a picture was worth a thousand words, the next generation of applications went a step further with sound, video and animation. Multimedia applications had arrived.

Then came the internet, which revolutionized content delivery. The web's HTML pages were easy to link to other pages. Search engines made it easy to look for something on the web.

With the advent of blogs, wikis and social networks the web further evolved to support content creation by everybody.

The web has now spread to a large number of users that consume increasing amounts of content. These users have come to expect their online experiences to be a two-way interactive street.

So, expect to see interactivity entering the mainstream of content delivery.

The six important milestones (text, graphic, multimedia, web, social and interactive) in the history of interactivity conjure up the image of a ladder we are ascending. Just roll your mouse over a step to drill down to a short description.

Built with Raptivity, in about 20 minutes.