Blog 3 - Interactivity

This article discusses a study on interactivity in shop window displays. In a world with so much information coming at us at once this study faces the same problem as everyone else; catching the attention of someone just passing by. The article cites three things that need to happen to have successful interactivity: (1) notice the display, (2) understand that it is interactive, and (3) be motivated to interact with it (not necessarily in this order). These three thing definitely translate into internet communication. With so much content available to us through the internet 24/7 we first need to be able to draw the attention of a user. Also, if the user does not understand what is supposed to be interactive they will move on. And finally, one way to motivate a user is through ease of interactivity. A person cruising the internet isn't usually going to stick with something they don't understand or can't figure out how to operate.
For the article's study they came to three conclusions that can be related to internet communication. One, content gains more attention from a user by personally relating or mirroring the user. Two, gaining attention can take time. For a user to really interact they may have to visit the site more than one time. And finally, attention from other users can be enough to get another user's interaction.

Müller, J., Walter, R., Bailly, G., Nischt, M., & Alt, F. (2012, May). Looking glass: a field study on noticing interactivity of a shop window. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 297-306). ACM.

http://www.joergmueller.info/pdf/CHI12MuellerLookingGlass.pdf