What is Interaction Design?
Usually abbreviated as IxD, it defines the structure and behavior of interactive systems. Interaction Designers strive to create meaningful relationships between people and the products and services that they use, from computers to mobile devices to appliances and beyond. The practice typically centers on "embedding information technology into the ambient social complexities of the physical world.
Interactivity, however, is not limited to technological systems. It can also apply to other types of non-electronic products and services, and even organizations. Also, people have been interacting with each other as long as humans have been a species. Therefore, interaction design can be applied to the development of all solutions (or offerings), such as services and events. Those who design these offerings have, typically, performed interaction design inherently without naming it as such.
Related Disciplines
Industrial Design: The core principles of Industrial Design overlap with those of interaction design, and vice versa. These include Physical form of an object, Aesthetics, Human perception & desire, and usability.
Human factors and ergonomics: Certain basic principles of Ergonomics provide grounding for interaction design. These include anthropometry, biomechanics, kinesiology, physiology and psychology as they relate to human behavior in the built environment.
Cognitive psychology: Certain basic principles of cognitive psychology provide grounding for interaction design. These include mental models, mapping and interface metaphors.
Human computer interaction: Academic research in human-computer interaction (HCI) includes methods for describing and testing the usability of interacting with an interface, such as cognitive dimensions and the cognitive walkthrough.
Design research: Interaction designers are typically informed through iterative cycles of user research. User research is used to identify the needs, motivations and behavior of end users. They design with an emphasis on user goals and experience, and evaluate designs in terms of usability and affective influence.
Architecture: As interaction designers increasingly deal with ubiquitous computing and urban computing, the architects' ability to make, place, and create context becomes a point of contact between the disciplines.
User Interface Design: Like User Interface design and Experience design, Interaction Design is often associated with the design of system interfaces in a variety of media but concentrates on the aspects of the interface that define and present its behavior over time, with a focus on developing the system to respond to the user's experience and not the other way around.
Methodologies
Interaction designers often follow similar processes to create a solution (not the solution) to a known interface design problem. Designers build rapid prototypes and test them with the users to validate or rebut the idea.
There are six major steps in interaction design. Based on user feedback, several iteration cycles of any set of steps may occur.
1. Design research.Using design research techniques (observations, interviews, questionnaires, and related activities), designers investigate users and their environment in order to learn more about them and thus be better able to design for them.
2. Research analysis and concept generation.
Drawing on a combination of user research, technological possibilities, and business opportunities, designers create concepts for new software, products, services, or systems. This process may involve multiple rounds of brainstorming, discussion, and refinement.To help designers realize user requirements, they may use tools such as personas or user profiles that are reflective of their targeted user group. From these personae, and the patterns of behavior observed in the research, designers create scenarios (or user stories) or storyboards, which imagine a future workflow the users will go through using the product or service.
After thorough analysis using various tools and models, designers create a high level summary spanning across all levels of user requirements. This includes a vision statement regarding the current and future goals of a project.
3. Alternative design and evaluation.Once a clear view of the problem domain exists, designers develop alternative solutions with crude prototypes to help convey concepts and ideas. Proposed solutions are evaluated and, perhaps, merged. The end result should be a design that solves as many of the user requirements as possible.
Among the tools that may be used for this process are wireframing and flow diagrams. The features and functionality of a product or service are often outlined in a document known as a wireframe ("schematics" is an alternate term). Wireframes are a page-by-page or screen-by-screen detail of the system, which include notes ("annotations") describing how the system will operate. Flow Diagrams outline the logic and steps of the system or an individual feature.
The cognitive dimensions framework provides a specialized vocabulary to evaluate particular design solutions, and aid in the creation of new designs from existing ones through design maneuvers.
4. Prototyping and usability testing.
Interaction designers use a variety of prototyping techniques to test aspects of design ideas. These can be roughly divided into three classes: those that test the role of an artifact, those that test its look and feel and those that test its implementation. Sometimes, these are called experience prototypes to emphasize their interactive nature. Prototypes can be physical or digital, high- or low-fidelity.
5. Implementation.
Interaction designers need to be involved during the development of the product or service to ensure that what was designed is implemented correctly. Often, changes need to be made during the building process, and interaction designers should be involved with any of the on-the-fly modifications to the design.
6. System testing.
Once the system is built, often another round of testing, for both usability and errors ("bug catching") is performed. Ideally, the designer will be involved here as well, to make any modifications to the system that are required.
Aspects of interaction design
Social interaction design
Social interaction design (SxD) is emerging because many of our computing devices have become networked and have begun to integrate communication capabilities. Phones, digital assistants and the myriad connected devices from computers to games facilitate talk and social interaction. Social interaction design accounts for interactions among users as well as between users and their devices. The dynamics of interpersonal communication, speech and writing, the pragmatics of talk and interaction—these now become critical factors in the use of social technologies. And they are factors described less by an approach steeped in the rational choice approach taken by cognitive science than that by sociology, psychology, and anthropology.
Affective interaction design
Throughout the process of interaction design, designers must be aware of key aspects in their designs that influence emotional responses in target users. The need for products to convey positive emotions and avoid negative ones is critical to product success. These aspects include positive, negative, motivational, learning, creative, social and persuasive influences to name a few. One method that can help convey such aspects is the use of expressive interfaces. In software, for example, the use of dynamic icons, animations and sound can help communicate a state of operation, creating a sense of interactivity and feedback. Interface aspects such as fonts, color pallet, and graphical layouts can also influence an interface's perceived effectiveness. Studies have shown that affective aspects can affect a user's perception of usability.Emotional and pleasure theories exist to explain peoples responses to the use of interactive products. These include Don Norman's emotional design model, Patrick Jordan's pleasure model, and McCarthy and Wright's Technology as Experience framework.
History
The term interaction design was first proposed by Bill Moggridge and Bill Verplank in the late 1980s. To Verplank, it was an adaptation of the computer science term user interface design to the industrial design profession. To Moggridge, it was an improvement over soft-face, which he had coined in 1984 to refer to the application of industrial design to products containing software (Moggridge 2006).
In 1990, Gillian Crampton-Smith established an interaction design MA at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London (originally entitled "computer-related design" and now known as Design Interactions). In 2001, she helped found the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, a small institute in Northern Italy dedicated solely to interaction design; the institute moved to Milan in October 2005 and merged courses with Domus Academy. In 2007, some of the people originally involved with IDII have now set up the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID).
Today, interaction design is taught in many schools worldwide.
IxDA - Interaction Design Association
IxDA is a novel kind of “un-organization” in that there is no cost for membership. IxDA relies on its passionate members to help serve the needs of the international Interaction Design community. With more than 15,000 members and over 80 local groups around the world, the IxDA network actively focuses on interaction design issues for the practitioner, no matter their level of experience.
IxDA was founded in 2003 and incorporated as a not-for-profit in late 2005. Today, the IxDA is involved in initiatives relating to the following core topics:
Dave Malouf - Foundations of Interaction Design: Bringing design critique to interaction design from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.
[Click here] For more info about IxDA
How did I get to talk about Interaction Design?
The answer: Global News.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LONDON — After screening “Star Wars” for his students, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pointed to a “remote” — as droids or robots are called in the movie — with which Luke Skywalker had been practicing his light saber fencing skills, and said: “I want you to build me some of those.” The students obliged, and three of their droids are now orbiting the earth on the International Space Station. Known as Synchronized Position, Hold, Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites (Spheres for short), they are roughly the same size as bowling balls and are being used to test how the astronauts working at the space station can assemble spacecraft, maintain satellites and conduct emergency repairs in zero gravity up there. The lessons learned from the Spheres and all of the other research conducted on the space station, which is scheduled to continue through the end of this year, will be used to develop new technologies, materials and other advances, which will keep designers busy for decades to come. The Spheres themselves are to be celebrated in “Talk to Me,” an exhibition opening in July at the Museum of Modern Art in New York that will explore the ways in which we communicate with objects. Among the exhibits will be data visualizations, digital interfaces, signage systems and more modest, yet useful innovations such as a Rubik’s Cube for people with poor sight in which the sides of the rotating cubes are identified by Braille symbols, rather than colors. Tackling one of the most topical issues in design makes “Talk to Me” a strong contender to be one of the most memorable design exhibitions of 2011. And its underlying theme, the impact of technology on daily life will be visible in every area of design throughout the year.
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After reading that article, I got more into what “TALK TO ME” will be about, and therefore about INTERACTION DESIGN. It is amazing how important it is, because we all need to feel when doing something, in some way the feedback is the key. We live in a society, and we are individuals that interact all the time.
Below, you have more info about this interesting exhibition that promise to be a success:
What is Talk to Me?
Talk to Me is an exhibition on the communication between people and objects that will open at The Museum of Modern Art on July 24th 2011. It will feature a wide range of objects from all over the world, from interfaces and products to diagrams, visualizations, perhaps even vehicles and furniture, by bona-fide designers, students, scientists, all designed in the past few years or currently under development. As you can tell, our net is cast very wide and the exhibition happens at the end of a long hunting and gathering exercise. Talk to Me explores the communication between people and things. All objects contain information that goes well beyond their immediate use or appearance. In some cases, objects like cell phones and computers exist to provide us with access to complex systems and networks, behaving as gateways and interpreters. Whether openly and actively, or in subtle, subliminal ways, things talk to us, and designers help us develop and improvise the dialogue. The exhibition focuses on objects that involve a direct interaction, such as interfaces, information systems, visualization design, and communication devices, and on projects that establish an emotional, sensual, or intellectual connection with their users. Examples range from a few iconic products of the late 1960s to several projects currently in development—including computer and machine interfaces, websites, video games, devices and tools, furniture and physical products, and extending to installations and whole environments. The Department of Architecture and Design is documenting the process of organizing Talk to Me from its early stages through its opening in July 2011 and beyond via an online journal. Visit the online journal at MoMA.org/talktome.
Among the things that lots of people is waiting to see, I selected this interesting Robot, that tries to do his best by trusting on pedestrians' help. [The next info is from www.tweenbots.com]
Tweenbots. Robot/People Art by Kacie Kinzer
In New York, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots.
Tweenbots are human-depende
nt robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.
Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot, I initially conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination. Because I built them with minimal technology, I had no way of tracking the Tweenbot’s progress, and so I set out on the first test with a video camera hidden in my purse. I placed the Tweenbot down on the sidewalk, and walked far enough away that I would not be observed as the Tweenbot––a smiling 10-inch tall cardboard missionary––bumped along towards his inevitable fate.
Usually abbreviated as IxD, it defines the structure and behavior of interactive systems. Interaction Designers strive to create meaningful relationships between people and the products and services that they use, from computers to mobile devices to appliances and beyond. The practice typically centers on "embedding information technology into the ambient social complexities of the physical world.
Interactivity, however, is not limited to technological systems. It can also apply to other types of non-electronic products and services, and even organizations. Also, people have been interacting with each other as long as humans have been a species. Therefore, interaction design can be applied to the development of all solutions (or offerings), such as services and events. Those who design these offerings have, typically, performed interaction design inherently without naming it as such.
Related Disciplines
Industrial Design: The core principles of Industrial Design overlap with those of interaction design, and vice versa. These include Physical form of an object, Aesthetics, Human perception & desire, and usability.
Human factors and ergonomics: Certain basic principles of Ergonomics provide grounding for interaction design. These include anthropometry, biomechanics, kinesiology, physiology and psychology as they relate to human behavior in the built environment.
Cognitive psychology: Certain basic principles of cognitive psychology provide grounding for interaction design. These include mental models, mapping and interface metaphors.
Human computer interaction: Academic research in human-computer interaction (HCI) includes methods for describing and testing the usability of interacting with an interface, such as cognitive dimensions and the cognitive walkthrough.
Design research: Interaction designers are typically informed through iterative cycles of user research. User research is used to identify the needs, motivations and behavior of end users. They design with an emphasis on user goals and experience, and evaluate designs in terms of usability and affective influence.
Architecture: As interaction designers increasingly deal with ubiquitous computing and urban computing, the architects' ability to make, place, and create context becomes a point of contact between the disciplines.
User Interface Design: Like User Interface design and Experience design, Interaction Design is often associated with the design of system interfaces in a variety of media but concentrates on the aspects of the interface that define and present its behavior over time, with a focus on developing the system to respond to the user's experience and not the other way around.
Methodologies
Interaction designers often follow similar processes to create a solution (not the solution) to a known interface design problem. Designers build rapid prototypes and test them with the users to validate or rebut the idea.
There are six major steps in interaction design. Based on user feedback, several iteration cycles of any set of steps may occur.
1. Design research.Using design research techniques (observations, interviews, questionnaires, and related activities), designers investigate users and their environment in order to learn more about them and thus be better able to design for them.
2. Research analysis and concept generation.
Drawing on a combination of user research, technological possibilities, and business opportunities, designers create concepts for new software, products, services, or systems. This process may involve multiple rounds of brainstorming, discussion, and refinement.To help designers realize user requirements, they may use tools such as personas or user profiles that are reflective of their targeted user group. From these personae, and the patterns of behavior observed in the research, designers create scenarios (or user stories) or storyboards, which imagine a future workflow the users will go through using the product or service.
After thorough analysis using various tools and models, designers create a high level summary spanning across all levels of user requirements. This includes a vision statement regarding the current and future goals of a project.
3. Alternative design and evaluation.Once a clear view of the problem domain exists, designers develop alternative solutions with crude prototypes to help convey concepts and ideas. Proposed solutions are evaluated and, perhaps, merged. The end result should be a design that solves as many of the user requirements as possible.
Among the tools that may be used for this process are wireframing and flow diagrams. The features and functionality of a product or service are often outlined in a document known as a wireframe ("schematics" is an alternate term). Wireframes are a page-by-page or screen-by-screen detail of the system, which include notes ("annotations") describing how the system will operate. Flow Diagrams outline the logic and steps of the system or an individual feature.
The cognitive dimensions framework provides a specialized vocabulary to evaluate particular design solutions, and aid in the creation of new designs from existing ones through design maneuvers.
4. Prototyping and usability testing.
Interaction designers use a variety of prototyping techniques to test aspects of design ideas. These can be roughly divided into three classes: those that test the role of an artifact, those that test its look and feel and those that test its implementation. Sometimes, these are called experience prototypes to emphasize their interactive nature. Prototypes can be physical or digital, high- or low-fidelity.
5. Implementation.
Interaction designers need to be involved during the development of the product or service to ensure that what was designed is implemented correctly. Often, changes need to be made during the building process, and interaction designers should be involved with any of the on-the-fly modifications to the design.
6. System testing.
Once the system is built, often another round of testing, for both usability and errors ("bug catching") is performed. Ideally, the designer will be involved here as well, to make any modifications to the system that are required.
Aspects of interaction design
Social interaction design
Social interaction design (SxD) is emerging because many of our computing devices have become networked and have begun to integrate communication capabilities. Phones, digital assistants and the myriad connected devices from computers to games facilitate talk and social interaction. Social interaction design accounts for interactions among users as well as between users and their devices. The dynamics of interpersonal communication, speech and writing, the pragmatics of talk and interaction—these now become critical factors in the use of social technologies. And they are factors described less by an approach steeped in the rational choice approach taken by cognitive science than that by sociology, psychology, and anthropology.
Affective interaction design
Throughout the process of interaction design, designers must be aware of key aspects in their designs that influence emotional responses in target users. The need for products to convey positive emotions and avoid negative ones is critical to product success. These aspects include positive, negative, motivational, learning, creative, social and persuasive influences to name a few. One method that can help convey such aspects is the use of expressive interfaces. In software, for example, the use of dynamic icons, animations and sound can help communicate a state of operation, creating a sense of interactivity and feedback. Interface aspects such as fonts, color pallet, and graphical layouts can also influence an interface's perceived effectiveness. Studies have shown that affective aspects can affect a user's perception of usability.Emotional and pleasure theories exist to explain peoples responses to the use of interactive products. These include Don Norman's emotional design model, Patrick Jordan's pleasure model, and McCarthy and Wright's Technology as Experience framework.
History
The term interaction design was first proposed by Bill Moggridge and Bill Verplank in the late 1980s. To Verplank, it was an adaptation of the computer science term user interface design to the industrial design profession. To Moggridge, it was an improvement over soft-face, which he had coined in 1984 to refer to the application of industrial design to products containing software (Moggridge 2006).
In 1990, Gillian Crampton-Smith established an interaction design MA at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London (originally entitled "computer-related design" and now known as Design Interactions). In 2001, she helped found the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, a small institute in Northern Italy dedicated solely to interaction design; the institute moved to Milan in October 2005 and merged courses with Domus Academy. In 2007, some of the people originally involved with IDII have now set up the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID).
Today, interaction design is taught in many schools worldwide.
IxDA - Interaction Design Association
IxDA is a novel kind of “un-organization” in that there is no cost for membership. IxDA relies on its passionate members to help serve the needs of the international Interaction Design community. With more than 15,000 members and over 80 local groups around the world, the IxDA network actively focuses on interaction design issues for the practitioner, no matter their level of experience.
IxDA was founded in 2003 and incorporated as a not-for-profit in late 2005. Today, the IxDA is involved in initiatives relating to the following core topics:
- Education and Mentoring
- Local Groups
- Interaction Conference
- Public Relations for IxDA
- Outreach to Business
- Internationalization of IxDA
Dave Malouf - Foundations of Interaction Design: Bringing design critique to interaction design from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.
[Click here] For more info about IxDA
How did I get to talk about Interaction Design?
The answer: Global News.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LONDON — After screening “Star Wars” for his students, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pointed to a “remote” — as droids or robots are called in the movie — with which Luke Skywalker had been practicing his light saber fencing skills, and said: “I want you to build me some of those.” The students obliged, and three of their droids are now orbiting the earth on the International Space Station. Known as Synchronized Position, Hold, Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites (Spheres for short), they are roughly the same size as bowling balls and are being used to test how the astronauts working at the space station can assemble spacecraft, maintain satellites and conduct emergency repairs in zero gravity up there. The lessons learned from the Spheres and all of the other research conducted on the space station, which is scheduled to continue through the end of this year, will be used to develop new technologies, materials and other advances, which will keep designers busy for decades to come. The Spheres themselves are to be celebrated in “Talk to Me,” an exhibition opening in July at the Museum of Modern Art in New York that will explore the ways in which we communicate with objects. Among the exhibits will be data visualizations, digital interfaces, signage systems and more modest, yet useful innovations such as a Rubik’s Cube for people with poor sight in which the sides of the rotating cubes are identified by Braille symbols, rather than colors. Tackling one of the most topical issues in design makes “Talk to Me” a strong contender to be one of the most memorable design exhibitions of 2011. And its underlying theme, the impact of technology on daily life will be visible in every area of design throughout the year.
After reading that article, I got more into what “TALK TO ME” will be about, and therefore about INTERACTION DESIGN. It is amazing how important it is, because we all need to feel when doing something, in some way the feedback is the key. We live in a society, and we are individuals that interact all the time.
Below, you have more info about this interesting exhibition that promise to be a success:
What is Talk to Me?
Talk to Me is an exhibition on the communication between people and objects that will open at The Museum of Modern Art on July 24th 2011. It will feature a wide range of objects from all over the world, from interfaces and products to diagrams, visualizations, perhaps even vehicles and furniture, by bona-fide designers, students, scientists, all designed in the past few years or currently under development. As you can tell, our net is cast very wide and the exhibition happens at the end of a long hunting and gathering exercise. Talk to Me explores the communication between people and things. All objects contain information that goes well beyond their immediate use or appearance. In some cases, objects like cell phones and computers exist to provide us with access to complex systems and networks, behaving as gateways and interpreters. Whether openly and actively, or in subtle, subliminal ways, things talk to us, and designers help us develop and improvise the dialogue. The exhibition focuses on objects that involve a direct interaction, such as interfaces, information systems, visualization design, and communication devices, and on projects that establish an emotional, sensual, or intellectual connection with their users. Examples range from a few iconic products of the late 1960s to several projects currently in development—including computer and machine interfaces, websites, video games, devices and tools, furniture and physical products, and extending to installations and whole environments. The Department of Architecture and Design is documenting the process of organizing Talk to Me from its early stages through its opening in July 2011 and beyond via an online journal. Visit the online journal at MoMA.org/talktome.
Among the things that lots of people is waiting to see, I selected this interesting Robot, that tries to do his best by trusting on pedestrians' help. [The next info is from www.tweenbots.com]
Tweenbots. Robot/People Art by Kacie Kinzer
In New York, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots.
Tweenbots are human-depende
nt robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot, I initially conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination. Because I built them with minimal technology, I had no way of tracking the Tweenbot’s progress, and so I set out on the first test with a video camera hidden in my purse. I placed the Tweenbot down on the sidewalk, and walked far enough away that I would not be observed as the Tweenbot––a smiling 10-inch tall cardboard missionary––bumped along towards his inevitable fate.
The results were unexpected. 
Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, "You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”
Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, "You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”
The Tweenbot’s unexpected presence in the city created an unfolding narrative that spoke not simply to the vastness of city space and to the journey of a human-assisted robot, but also to the power of a simple technological object to create a complex network powered by human intelligence and asynchronous interactions. But of more interest to me was the fact that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object. The journey the Tweenbots take each time they are released in the city becomes a story of people's willingness to engage with a creature that mirrors human characteristics of vulnerability, of being lost, and of having intention without the means of achieving its goal alone. As each encounter with a helpful pedestrian takes the robot one step closer to attaining its destination, the significance of our random discoveries and individual actions accumulates into a story about a vast space made small by an even smaller robot.
*** If you liked this example, visit MoMA.org/talktome. for more amazing stuff. ***
