Interactive Design

Interaction Design is a field and approach to designing interactive experiences. These could be in any medium (such as live events or performances, products, services, etc.) and not only digital media. Interactive experiences, necessarily, require time as an organizing principle 9though not exclusively) and Interactive Design is concerned with a user, customer, audience, or participant's experience flow through time. Interactivity should not be confused with animation in which objects may move on a screen. Interactivity is concerned with being part of the action of a system or performance and not merely watching the action passively." 1
What is interactive design? Why is it so important?

No longer is design confined by the traditional method of one user determining the content as is the case with book, television and radio. Commonly with these medium, the content and method of information transfer is determined by the writer/TV station/Radio station and the user (viewer) is subjected to the experience determined by the composer.

Now, with the development of interactive design, the experience is determined by the user. Think of websites such as Blogger, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr and Photobucket. These sites allow the user to easily input their own information and opinions.

Interactive design applicable to the internet. Artistic installments can also be interactive, as is the case with Bystander.

1 Nathan Shedroff http://www.nathan.com/ed/glossary/