interactive

interactive

The back-and-forth dialog between the user and the computer. Games are always interactive, and most computer applications are interactive. The user selects a task, and the computer carries it out. Then the user selects another. Many Web pages are also interactive and increasingly function like locally installed applications (see dynamic Web page).

Not Interactive
A static Web page that has only links to other pages would not be considered interactive (see static Web page). In addition, a small utility program that performs one specific task may run without user interaction. After launching, the utility executes a set of instructions and exits.

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1.		INTERACTIVE - A network simulation language. ["Design and Implementation of a Pascal Based Interactive Network Simulation Language", R. Lakshmanan, PhD Thesis, Oakland U, Rochester MI 1983].
2.	(programming)	interactive - A term describing a program whose input and output are interleaved, like a conversation, allowing the user's input to depend on earlier output from the same run. The interaction with the user is usually conducted through either a text-based interface or a graphical user interface. Other kinds of interface, e.g. using speech recognition and/or speech synthesis, are also possible. This is in contrast to batch processing where all the input is prepared before the program runs and so cannot depend on the program's output.