Interactive means responding to what the user does. An interactive map, interactive whiteboard, fully interactive.
The response is what earns the word: something you can click that does nothing back is not interactive, whatever it is called. Interactive fiction lets the reader choose. The word is used loosely in marketing for anything with a button. Note interact, and that inter- means between.
1adjectiveinteractiveResponding to what the user does.
“The science museum is full of interactive displays that children can touch and play with.”
interactive is a quality of responsiveness.
Proto-Indo-European
*ters-
Vulgar Latin
*interrāre — to put in earth
Old French
enterrer
Middle English
enteren
English
inter
English, today
interactive
From inter- + active. inter comes from Middle English enteren, borrowed from Old French enterrer, enterer, from Vulgar Latin interrāre (“to put in earth”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA