I13004013 Group1: Interactivity in Multimedia Application

Definition

Interactive:"allowing a two-way flow of information between a computer and a computer-user; responding to a user’s input"(Oxford Dictionaries).

 Interactive Multimedia is the new way of the computer application how to deal with the provision of data. The term multimedia is characterised by the text, pictures, sound, animation and video; which are organised into some consistent program. The term interactive refers to how the user control the environment by a computer. 'Interactivity Multimedia' usually abbreviated to simply word like 'multimedia', but this is not exactly accurate, because cable TV has all of the aspects of multimedia, but not yet interactive(Rod Phillips, 1997).

Introduction

Interactivity transform viewer into user with some elements for them to control. The whole multimedia application is non-linear and it is not running from the beginning till the end like a movie, it change based on user's actions, users can always jump from topic to topic they like and skip the less interesting part. 

Interactive attributes included data or text entry, mouse input, touch screens, voice commands, video capture, and real time interaction. It allows two way interaction with multimedia application or another user input, comparatively one way communication like cable TV only allow the sender to sent information to viewer, and viewer can not send in any command or input(Cyber Media Creations, 2008).

Interactivity makes it easy for users/consumers to revisit specific categories of shoes in multimedia application which the users are interesting in without wasting time to go through the whole multimedia application and explore them fully(Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 1999).

Types of Interactions  

Corrie(1999) stated that there is four types of interactions,
1. Communication - One to One
This kind of interactions is like telephone communication between two parties, it can be human or machine, examples included email.
 2. Broadcast - One to Many
It is like broadcasting, it should be consider as low level interacting, because there is only one sender to a lot of receiver, examples included cable TV and speeches 
3. Voting - Many to One
Receiver gives feedback to the sender, examples included movies comment and rating.
 4. Party - Many to Many
The sender and receiver both involve in the event, even though there may be a number of one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-one interactions occurring simultaneously, examples included meeting and internet relay chat.

Level of interactivity 

Rhodes & Azbell(1985) identified three levels of interactivity and the passive:

Level 1. Passive-no interaction
This level is what is commonly referred to as ‘page-turners'. The navigation is linear, in which the user acts only as an information receiver. Basically, the sequence is fixed, viewer can not choose the order in which content you interested in, return to previous scenes or browse freely. At this level user do not have interact with resources, such as Keynote presentation.

Level 2. Limited interaction
This level also known as ‘reactive'. It provides very little user control over the
content with the program controlling options and feedback. At this level user interact with resources such as audio, video and navigation expands to menus, glossaries, and links to external resources.

Level 3. Moderate interaction
This level also known as ‘coactive'. At Level 3 there is a high degree of complexity and customization, which has more control for sequence, pace and style and not just a presentation of content. This level is a favorite in the industry mainly because it optimized the balance between active learning and development time. Resources such as scenario-based cases and custom flash animation.

Level 4. Real-time Interaction
This level also known as ‘proactive'. It gives user highest degree of interaction by control both structure and content. Such as Real-time learning and 3D simulations.

Corrie(1999) have another way to level the interactivity,

Both level of interactivity is actually almost same, but Corrie version separated it to more specific, which is much more preferable.

Object Interactivity 

Object interactivity - proactive inquiry, mentions to an application in that objects like buttons, things are activated by employing a mouse or any supplementary devices. When user clicks on the object, there will be a little form of audio-visual response. The functionality of such objects can be varied according to consequential factors(Sims, R. 1995).

four state of button,
1. Up state: when mouse is not point on the button.
2. Over state: when mouse hovering over the button, not applicable to touch screen input.
3. Down state: when clicking the button(depressed).
4. Hit state: clickable area of button, it define whether your mouse is on the button or not.
Button and movie-clip symbol are interacting object, movie-clip symbol have no state limitation.

Invisible button - hiding in words An invisible Button is a button without up key frames, user can not see it unless the pointer is on it, it is useful for creating generic hotspots, it can be use on top of images or the shape of shoe where can link to another scenes but not changing the button symbol; it can also be use at the side of the user interface, when the pointer move over the edge, the menu button appear which give you bigger screen for your content. Drop-down Menu

Besides that, Animated Button is offen use, because it give more life and sophistication to the interaction between user and button(Chun, R. 2010. pp.197,201).

ActionScript

ActionScript is a robust script languages which is familiar with JavaScript, it offer more interacting function in Adobe Flash(Chun, R. 2010. pp.208).
With ActionScript, the multimedia application can detect events and respond to them by playing music or jump around the timeline with the user will, even though some interactive function can be done without scripting, but there is more interactive development potential with scripting.

Use in assignment 

With Interactivity, I can change the shoes to any colours without making more scenes for every colours shoes which would lead to increase file size, slower performance and harder to edit(Ulrich, K., 2011, pp. 436).

Besides that, I can also set-up a survey-like system to gather user information about the shoes he or she needed and then recommend the shoes which would be the most suiting to him or her. And using the advantages of button over state to show more picture or video about the shoes when user point at the shoes category button.

References

 Bergeron, C.(1999). Interactive experiences, NAB Multimedia World. [online] Available at: http://rocky.itasca.net/~corrie/intexp.pdf (Accessed:21September)
Borsook, T. K. & Higginbotham(1991). 'Interactivity: What is it and what can it do for computer-based instruction?'. Educational Technology.
Bransford, J.D., Brown, A.L., & Cocking, R.R. (eds.). (1999). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC : National Academy Press
Chun, R.(2010) 'Creating Interactive Navigation' Gulick, R. (ed.) Adobe Flash professional CS5 : classroom in a book. 1st edn. Berkeley, CA.:Adobe Press.
'Glossary', Cyber Media Creations(2008). [online] Available at: http://www.cybermediacreations.com/elearning/glossary.html (Accessed:21 September 2013)
'Interative', Oxford Dictionaries. [online] Available at: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/interactive (Accessed: 21 September 2013)
Phillips, R. (1997). The Developer's Handbook to Interactive Multimedia. London.:Kogan Page.
Rhodes, D.M., & Azbell, J.W. (1985). Designing interactive video instruction professionally. Training and Development Journal, Vol 39(12),pp. 31-33.
Sims R. (1995). 'Interactivity: A Forgotten Art?', ITFORUM (Instructional Technology Forum). [online] Available at: http://itforum.coe.uga.edu/paper10/paper10.html(Accessed: 21 September 2013)
Ulrich, K.(2011)'Basic Interactivity' Sharp, W. (ed.) Adobe Flash professional CS5 : for Windows and Macintosh. 1st edn. Berkeley, Calif.:Peachpit Press, pp. 431-487