As a piece of interactive fiction Ruth Nestvold’s short story Joe’s Heart in Budapest successfully draws the reader into the reality created by the work. Given the choice of four responses the reader can enter into conversation with the program and thus forms a relationship with the program. This form of interaction can be seen as limited, as is argued by Larsen and Higgason in their discussion of hypertext anchors, because the reader only has four available responses with which to conduct the conversation. However, the emotional complexity of the programmed responses compensate for the small number of responses as they either encourage or challenge the reader to continue.

As the reader’s responses reciprocate conversation the path the reader takes establishes the relationship between program and reader whether it be the male or female character of the story or that of a critical reader of web-based fiction. The text uses the extra diegetic voice as well as the diegetic, speaking either to the reader, or the character the reader has assumed in the course of the conversation.

The use of the extra-diegetic narratorial voice shows the text to be reflexive as it is in this voice which the text questions the reader as to the purpose of reading, acknowledging the limitations of the program and quipping on the circular nature of the piece “ad nauseum.” However the character of the critical reader is just as constructed as the fictional character that the reader also responds for. Therefore, whether responding as one of the characters or the interactive reader the reader’s identity is constructed by the relationship they form with the program. This in essence precludes interaction with the text as despite their input the reader always relates to the program on the program's level.