"After reading Chris Crawford's definition, how would you define physical interaction? What makes for good physical interaction? Can you name some examples of digital technology that are not interactive?"
Crawford defines interaction as a cyclic process in which two actors alternately listen, think, and speak. He puts it more simply as an order of events that includes input, process, and output. I agree with this for the most part, although my initial response to the question of what defines interactivity was pretty much "well, I guess it's somewhat subjective". I was quickly shot down. When dealing with interaction on a person to person basis, I think crawford's points are all viable for the most part, as there are two separate entities, each capable of independent thought and response.
When it comes to physical interaction in my mind, one of the actors will more often than not be something that is part of the human actor's environment, and something that said actor must go out of their way to initialize interaction with. At the most basic level, I'd agree that the fridge door is interactive, but that the meaningfulness of the output is arguable, depending on the interactor.
As far as what makes for good physical interaction, I'd say anything that has the capability of producing various outputs, based on various inputs. Where the fridge door only really allows for one input and one output, i'd say that a requirement for good physical interaction would be an interface that would grant the interactor the ability to make more than one choice, and have more than one potential output that would be based on it.
Thinking of a digital technology that might not necessarily be interactive, television comes to mind right away. While it is required that the user makes an input and receives a corresponding output, i feel as though the actual act of watching tv is something more participatory, as crawford's example of reading a book.
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