This post was originally written in Dutch for Frankwatching.com

The World Wide Web is a dull and annoying place, especially if you consider it an interactive medium. Although search fields and hyperlinks give you access to an almost infinite amount of information and you also are able to add to that information, the web seldom becomes truly interactive.

Interaction between people is exciting and unpredictable. You immediately notice this when you talk to someone else. You tell something and the other responds. A dialog follows and what the outcome or direction of the conversation will be is unknown. Every person interprets stuff from his own intelligence and frame of reference, but websites and servers don’t have those. This is why interaction on the web is quite boring and predictable. For example, if you google on “cars” you get thousands of hits that are somewhat relevant but completely useless. But when you talk with someone about “cars”, the other person asked questions and together you come to a meaningful conversation, exchanging information in the process. Read the rest of this entry »

I just won a free ticket to the Plugg conference in Brussels with a guestarticle at Frankwatching. The article is about the need and possibilities of a more fun web experience by implementing Entertaining Interaction. It’s in Dutch but I’ll try to translate it as soon as possible and post it here!

If you are at Plugg, drop me a mail and we might meet up!

Everybody knows how to calculate a body mass index (BMI) nowadays, you take your length in meters and multiply that by your weight in kilograms. Then you have to compare the number to a table to see if you are to heavy or not. A simple but quite boring exercise.
The Dutch Centre for Food Education made the calculation a bit more entertaining by putting it on an interactive scale. By changing the two sliders you instantaneously see what happens when you gain or lose weight and how that reflects on your health.

By using the Dynamic Queries pattern the user gets instant feedback on what he does and by showing the results in a clear graphic the meaning of the data is understood immediately.

Pattern: Dynamic Queries

The internet is boring, all these promises of a truly interactive medium have barely come true. Sure you can click links and do searches but if that’s interaction then a fridge is interactive too.
No, interaction should be fun and meaningful, just like interacting with other people! People don’t just comply and only give you what you ask for. People interpret and give reactions based on there own insights and thoughts. That’s what makes people interesting and the internet boring!
But it doesn’t have to be this way!
How we’re going to do that?
That’s what’s this blog is going to try to answer!