Blog Assignment 3: Interactivity

http://www.digitaldesign.us/howTo/interactivity.html

I found this article about interactivity interesting because it talks about how interactivity can increase the effectiveness of a website. The author talks about how expectations for websites are changing and that interactivity is important to give visitors what they want. Basically, the more interactive and engaging a website is the more successful it will be.

Interactivity for a website is important because it keeps visitors on the site longer, brings them back for future visits, and can create a "buzz" about the website. If there are things to interact with and activities to participate in on the site, then the user is likely to stay on and participate longer. With fun and exciting interactive options, such as chat boxes, polls, or games, the user is more likely to interact with the website and to return in the future. Additionally, if the user finds interactive options that intrigues them they are more likely to tell their friends or link the website from another site. This is very helpful when trying to gain a larger audience and create a "buzz" about the website.

I also found it interesting in the third article on AsUlearn titled "The effect of user interactivity on user experience" that said, even interactive options that people do not use will draw them to a website. Just by simply seeing something such as a chat box makes the user think that the website is more interactive which makes them more likely to return in the future. This just means that the mere appearance of visual cues may have the same effect as the actual use of interactive features.

I think that interactivity is difficult to measure, but can be determined to some degree. There are many variables that go into interactivity but some simple concepts can be observed. For example, interactivity could be measured simply by recording the number of users that visit a site and how many times they click on or interact with something. If you were able to track when a user revisited the site you could even see how successful the interactivity is in drawing the user back for future visits. The amount of users who visit a site is a good measurement of how successful the site is, but it might be difficult to determine how much each user is actually interacting with the site while they are on it.