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INTERACT is a multi-purpose tool for the collection and analysis of time-related data in a flexible and comfortable way.

It can be used for qualitative and quantitative data analysis for a wide range of experiments.

The most significant advantage of INTERACT lies in the various restructuring, statistical, and time-based analysis routines!

It is perfect for anyone doing any kind of observational research, because as J.W. Creswell puts it: "Research is a process of steps used to collect and analyze information to increase our understanding of a topic or issue".
This process consists of three steps:

1)Pose a question

2)Collect data to answer the question

3)Present an answer to the question

What does INTERACT do?

oINTERACT does not DO anything on its own.

oINTERACT helps you to manually log behavioral Events in a structured way - including exact time information.

oINTERACT can create Events automatically, based on collected information.
For example: Create new Events for all situations where any number of Codes do overlap or to identify and specify latencies between two specified Codes.

oINTERACT can create fixed intervals for time-sampling-based codings, as well as pre- and post-intervals for a specific key-Event.

oINTERACT provides you with instant descriptive statistics, like plain counts, duration, and percentages over time per Code, and it searches for co-occurrences, latencies, contingencies, and much more, with just a few mouse clicks.

oINTERACT's statistics, analysis, and data manipulation and restructuring routines, enable you to gain new and in-depth insights on the observational data.

oINTERACT allows you to discover things you would never be able to see during direct observations.

How does INTERACT work?

INTERACT can be used for all kinds of sampling methods, as described in Observation Methods.

In general, it works like this:

oEach observation has both a start (start time) and end (offset) time.

oFor observations without duration: start time = offset.

oEach Event is a single line in your data file.

oThese Event-lines hold all time-information and can be filled with one or multiple Observation Codes to identify and categorize the behavior of that Event.

For this process, the various comfortable and flexible Coding-modes, use user definable Codes. Those Codes are entered per mouse click using the Coding panel or by single keystrokes.

A basic setup can be achieved within minutes. You can even start using INTERACT without any configuration at all: It can e used like and MS Excel that controls your video(s)!

Very complex coding systems can be implemented as well because INTERACT offers multiple coding modes, methods, and additional coding options. Creating a smart enough setup in the code definitions might take some exercise. Just ask for assistance if you get stuck.

The collected data is stored in a data file (*.xiact) with a spreadsheet-like structure of lines and columns.
Each Event's time information is shown in the first two columns. The corresponding Code (s) are written in the same line.
This information can be edited by hand at any time.

Read about the most important expressions in INTERACT Essentials!

When can I use INTERACT?

For any type of study that does rely on human observations.

INTERACT was designed for:

oThe analysis of multimedia files (digitized video or audio recordings on the computer).

oLogging Codes during live observations.

oRefining and extending your live observations with detailed, video based observations, once the session has been recorded.

oLogging Codes with variable length in the Event Sampling Method.

oLogging Codes in fixed intervals, using the Time Sampling Method.

INTERACT's systematic collection of behavioral data (with start time and offset information) and the open structure of the application offers various ways to evaluate the collected data. All this, regardless of the observational source (multimedia based or live observations) and completely independent of the research area, for example:

oUsability,

oMother/child/infant interaction,

oFacial expressions,

oTranscriptions,

oAnimal behavior,

oMedical Simulation,

oTrainings like for athletes, politicians, actors etc.

oTherapy sessions,

oGroup discussions,

o...

No matter if you are observing animals or humans, you can log a large variety of events, like:

omovements

odifferent behaviors

oactivities

osocial interaction

oemotional scales

onatural spoken word transcriptions

oanything else you can observe

What else is important?

External data, like physiological data, data from flight or drive simulators and/or eye-tracking systems, can easily be imported and visualized with the help of DataView.

In the Windows version:
Creating highlight-videos based on your observations is a piece of cake with the help of our video editing module named HighLight MovieCreator*.

One of the fundamental philosophies behind INTERACT is that it can easily be integrated into a chain of tools. This means, that getting the data out is even easier as getting the data in!

REMEMBER: All situations are just examples! Each method can be adapted, to fit a completely different field of application.

*) Currently only available on Windows.