But it is more complicated that this. Consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitzur%E2%80%93Vaidman_bomb_t... -- if you only poke the particle in a "parallel universe", that also changes its pattern in this one.
At the end, quantum physics says there are multiple "versions" of how the particles move, and those versions interfere with each other. By interacting with each other, particles become entangled, which means that the "versions" of their states are no longer calculated independently, but together.
There are disagreements of what exactly this means: some people believe that reality only has multiple "versions" on a microscopic level, but when the entangled configuration becomes large enough (how large? no one knows), the parallel computation collapses, one of these "versions" is randomly selected to become the actual reality and the remaining ones disappear. Other people believe that multiple "versions" is the whole story; that observing the outcome means that you (being composed of particles that follow the laws of physics) also become entangled with the particles in the experiment, and now there are multiple "versions" of you, each observing a different outcome.
So, I'd say you got it half-right. Yes, it is about "observation = interaction"; and "observer" is just a shortcut for "the thing that poked the experimental particle, optionally also a display connected to that thing, optionally also a person observing the display". (That is, you could also have a completely impersonal "observer", e.g. a machine that measures the particle but no one is looking at its display.) But quantum physics is a different thing than mere classical physics where you correct for photons being actual things that hit the measured particle. It means there actually are multiple outcomes, which then interfere with each other, at least on the microscopic level.
Please note that physics as science in general is advancing constantly, but mainstream physics advances in sprints. Currently, walking droplets and Pilot Wave Theory are not good enough to be included into mainstream physics.
In order to obtain the information you wish to 'observe', you need to interact with it.
That interaction 'collapses the wave function', or rather, you become part the wave function, but seeing it 'from the inside' looks different compared to from the outside.
Anyone got a link?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment
The most mind boggling aspect of this for me is the single photon version, which is under the "Interference of individual particles" section of the above article. The point is that you get an interference pattern even when only a single photon at a time is sent through the slits!