“Interact With Me” is an interactive experimental web-art piece designed by Lucy Irving.  It explores the relationships between the user and the interface; focussing on subverting the normal principles of good interaction design.

The aim of this project was to create an unconventional interface; something which was confusing and infuriating yet engaging and interesting.  An interface which was under the control of the designer not the user.  Combining these ideas was difficult.  The confusion and loss of control needed to be built up gradually.  Simon Morse provided inspiration and advice for this piece for which I am very grateful.

The interface is comical and interesting to interact with.  The options may not always seem logical and some combinations of symbols will not appear to have any connection.  Symbols can mean different things to different people.  The symbols are used as options instead of words to extend the ambiguity of the interface.

Four different symbols are shown simultaneously for the user to choose from. The probability of the interface selecting the correct symbol becomes less and less likely as you progress through the sequence of sets of symbols. This system evolved thorough testing.  I discovered that if the probability of the interface registering the correct selection was 100% random to begin with, people give up interacting with the system very quickly.  They realised that their selections were not being registered and that they had no control from the start.

Control is a major factor in this piece of work.  The users believes that they are in control of technology, but in this case the designer has decided to switch the control. 

The interaction with the interface is constrained by the input device (shown below) which is a system of control in itself:



This website is also a system of control.  It has prevented you viewing this page until you had visited the “Interact With Me” page.  I chose to prevent people viewing this page and the comments page before they had interacted as I believe that it may ruin the “trick” of “Interact With Me” if it is explained.

For me, the “Interact With Me” interface has developed a personality.  It is desperately seeking for you to interact with it but it drives you away with its wrong answers, slowed down interaction style, muzak background sounds and harsh Op Art style visuals. 

I wanted to emulate the feeling of frustration felt when you are trying to interact with an automated, voice recognition telephone system.  We interact with technological devices and interfaces on a daily basis but we have no idea who has designed them.  Should we allow the designers to be in control? 

I hope that this piece will make people think about why they feel the need to be in constant control and how easy this control can be lost when it comes to interacting with technology.  This piece has been developed to make us consider how much we take intuitive interfaces for granted.  We rely so much on technology to always provide the correct answers.  But it is the designers and programmers who are actually in control. 

Please leave a comment about this project.