I'LL CALL
YOU TOMORROW
 The second requirement
for Flow is fast,
accurate feedback. It’s interesting that
the definition of interactive is "of or
relating to a two-way electronic or
communications system in which response is direct
and continual." – in other
words, fast, accurate feedback.
Primitive feedback in a video game context, is "Yikes!" I just blew up! Or,
back to the caveman, the tiger leapt at him and
he managed to get out of the way. His
fast, accurate
feedback was that he knew he was still alive when
the tiger hit the ground.
A
way of providing fast, accurate feedback
in a romantic situation is to be
responsive and honest in a polite
fashion. If you say, "I’ll call
you tomorrow," call
tomorrow. If you meant
to say "Let's not ever do this
again," say it. Politely of course.
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Of course fast, accurate
feedback doesn’t have to be a matter of life
or death. In applications, The very definition of interactive calls for feedback
that is "...direct
and continual." Given that, I can
think of many supposedly "interactive" applications that
hardly qualify because of their slow performance
and long latency between action and response. Web
applications are especially bad. We all hate long
downloads, not just because of the time it takes,
but because we seldom have any
clue as to how long we are going to have to wait.
All this translates into a simple rule of thumb
for life and design. In all
things, be informative.
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