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Encyclopedia > Interaction Design

Interaction Design (IxD) is the discipline of defining the behavior of products and systems that a user can interact with. The practice typically centers around complex technology systems such as software, mobile devices, and other electronic devices. However, it can also apply to other types of products and services, and even organizations themselves. Interaction design defines the behavior (the "interaction") of an artifact or system in response to its users. Software redirects here. ... This article or section reads like an advertisement. ... This article is about the engineering discipline. ...


Certain basic principles of cognitive psychology provide grounding for interaction design. These include mental models, mapping, interface metaphors, and affordances. Many of these are laid out in Donald Norman's influential book The Design of Everyday Things. 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. Cognitive Psychology is the school of psychology that examines internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language. ... A mental model is an explanation in someones thought process for how something works in the real world. ... An Affordance is a possible action that an object or an environment invites, induces or tempts an individual to perform. ... Donald A. Norman is a professor emeritus of cognitive science at University of California, San Diego and a Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University, but nowadays works mostly with cognitive science in the domain of usability engineering. ... Donald A. Norman is a professor emeritus of cognitive science at University of California, San Diego and a Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University, but nowadays works mostly with cognitive science in the domain of usability engineering. ... Human-computer interaction (HCI) is the study of interaction between people (users) and computers. ... Cognitive dimensions are design principles for notations & programming language design, described by researcher Thomas R.G. Green. ... The Cognitive Walkthrough method is a usability inspection method used to identify usability issues in a piece of software or web site, focusing on how easy it is for new users to accomplish tasks with the system. ...


Interaction designers are typically informed through iterative cycles of user research. They design with an emphasis on user goals and experience, and evaluate designs in terms of usability and affective influence. All Saints Chapel in the Cathedral Basilica of St. ... Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal. ...

Contents

User-centered interaction design?

As new technologies are often overly complex for their intended target audience, interaction design aims to minimize the learning curve and to increase accuracy and efficiency of a task without diminishing usefulness. The objective is to reduce frustration and increase user productivity and satisfaction.


Interaction design attempts to improve the usability and experience of the product, by first researching and understanding certain users' needs and then designing to meet and exceed them. (Figuring out who needs to use it, and how those people would like to use it.)


Only by involving users who will use a product or system on a regular basis will designers be able to properly tailor and maximize usability. Involving real users, designers gain the ability to better understand user goals and experiences. (see also: User-centered design) There are also positive side effects which include enhanced system capability awareness and user ownership. It is important that the user be aware of system capabilities from an early stage so that expectations regarding functionality are both realistic and properly understood. Also, user's who have been active participants in a product's development are more likely to feel a sense of ownership, thus increasing overall satisfaction. It has been suggested that User Centered Design be merged into this article or section. ...


Relationship with user interface design

Interaction Design is often associated with the design of system interfaces in a variety of media (see also: Interface design, Experience design) 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. The system interface can be thought of as the artifact (whether visual or other sensory) that represents an offering's designed interactions. Interactive voice response (Telephone User Interface) is an example of interaction design without graphical user interface as a media. User interface design is the overall process of designing the interaction between a human (user) and a machine (computer). ... Experience design is an approach to the design of products, services and environments based on a holistic consideration of the users experience. ... IVR redirects here. ... Telephone User Interface is a term used for all the user interaction with the telephone, typically through interactive Voice Response Systems. ...


Interactivity, however, is not limited to technological systems. 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. ‹ The template below has been proposed for deletion. ...


General steps in interaction design

There is a general process that most interaction designers follow, the point of which is to create a solution (not the solution) to a known problem. A key element in this process is the idea of iteration, where the aim is to build quick prototypes and test them with the users to make sure the proposed solution is satisfactory.


These are the 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. Design research emerged as a recognisable field of study in the 1960s, initially marked by a conference on Design methods at Imperial College, London, in 1962. ... Participant observation is a major research strategy which aims to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals (such as a religious, occupational, or deviant group) and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their natural environment. ... For other uses, see Interview (disambiguation). ... A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. ...


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 work flow the users will go through using the product or service. Personas or personae are fictitious characters that are created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic that might use a site or product. ... In computing, a scenario is a typical interaction between the user and the system or between two software components. ... A user story is a software system requirement formulated as one or two sentences in the everyday language of the user. ... Storyboards are graphic organizers such as a series of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of previsualizing a motion graphic or interactive media sequence, including website interactivity. ...


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 clear view of the problem space exists, designers will develop alternative solutions with crude prototypes to help convey concepts and ideas. Proposed solutions are evaluated and perhaps even merged. The end result should be a design that solves as many of the user requirements as possible.


Some 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") as to how the system will operate. Flow Diagrams outline the logic and steps of the system or an individual feature.


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. Social interaction is a dynamic, changing sequence of social actions between individuals (or groups) who modify their actions and reactions due to the actions by their interaction partner(s). ... Interpersonal communication is the process of sending and receiving information or communication with another person. ... Sociology (from Latin: socius, companion; and the suffix -ology, the study of, from Greek λόγος, lógos, knowledge [1]) is the scientific or systematic study of society, including patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture[2]. Areas studied in sociology can range from the analysis of brief contacts between anonymous... {redirect|Psychological science|the journal|Psychological Science (journal)}} Not to be confused with Phycology. ... This article is about the social science. ...


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.[1] 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.[2]


Emotional and pleasure theories exist to explain peoples responses to the use of interactive products. These includes Don Norman's emotional design model, Patrick Jordan's pleasure model, and McCarthy and Wright's Technology as Experience framework. Donald Norman is a professor emeritus of computer science at University of California, San Diego and a Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University, but nowadays works mostly with cognitive science in the domain of usability engineering. ... Emotional Design is both the title of a book by Donald Norman and of the concept it represents. ...


Interaction design domains

Interaction designers work in many areas, including software interfaces, (business) information systems, internet, physical products, environments, services, and systems which may combine many of these. Each area requires its own skills and approaches, but there are aspects of interaction design common to all.


Interaction designers often work in interdisciplinary teams as their work requires expertise in many different domains, including graphic design, programming, psychology, user testing, product design, etc (see below for more related disciplines). Thus, they need to understand enough of these fields to work effectively with specialists.


History

The term interaction design was first proposed by Bill Moggridge[3] 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.[4] 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). Bill Moggridge is co-founder of the Silicon Valley_based design firm IDEO. He helped design the first laptop computer, the GRiD compass. ... The 1980s was the decade spanning from 1980 to 1989, also called The Eighties. The decade saw social, economic and general upheaval as wealth, production and western culture migrated to new industrializing economies. ...


In 1989, Gillian Crampton-Smith established an interaction design MA at the Royal College of Art 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. Today, interaction design is taught in many schools worldwide.


See also

It has been suggested that User Centered Design be merged into this article or section. ... // Human–computer interaction (HCI), alternatively man–machine interaction (MMI) or computer–human interaction (CHI) is the study of interaction between people (users) and computers. ... Example of industrial design item - hanger chair Industrial design is an applied art whereby the aesthetics and usability of products may be improved for marketability and production. ... User interface design is the overall process of designing the interaction between a human (user) and a machine (computer). ... In interaction design, an interaction design (ID) pattern is a general repeatable solution to a commonly-occurring usability problem in interface design or interaction design. ... Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal. ... User experience design is a subset of the field of experience design which pertains to the creation of the architecture and interaction models which impact a users perception of a device or system. ...

References

  1. ^ Sharp 2007:184
  2. ^ Sharp 2007:184
  3. ^ Integrate business modeling and interaction design
  4. ^ Bill Verplank home site
  • (2007). In Helen Sharp, Yvonne Rogers, & Jenny Preece, Interaction Design - beyond human-computer interaction (2nd Edition ed., pp. 181-217). John Wiley & Sons.

Further Reading

  • Marion Buchenau & Jane Fulton Suri, "Experience Prototyping", DIS '00, ISBN 1-58113-219-0/00/0008.
  • Alan Cooper & Robert M. Reimann: About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design, Wiley, 2003, ISBN 0-764-52641-3.
  • Stephanie Houde & Charles Hill, "What Do Prototypes Prototype?" in Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (2nd ed.), M. Helander, T. Landauer, and P. Prabhu (eds.), Elsevier Science B. V, 1997.
  • Brenda Laurel & Peter Lunenfeld: Design Research: Methods and Perspectives, MIT Press, 2003, ISBN 0-262-12263-4.
  • Bill Moggridge, Designing Interactions, MIT Press, 2007, ISBN 0-262-13474-8.
  • Donald Norman: The Design of Everyday Things, ISBN 0-465-06710-7.
  • Jef Raskin: The Humane Interface, ACm Press, 2000, ISBN 0-201-37937-6.
  • Dan Saffer: Designing for Interaction, New Riders, 2006, ISBN 0-321-43206-1.

Alan Cooper, an advocate of interaction design, runs a design company and writes books about how to make software user interfaces more usable. ... Charles Hill is the name of the following people: Lord Hill of Luton, Radio Doctor, Member of Parliament and Chairman of the ITA and BBC Charles Hill, diplomat, a career minister in the U.S. Foreign Service. ... Brenda Laurel is a pioneering writer, researcher, designer and entrepeneur in the fields of human-computer interaction, interactive narrative and cultural aspects of technology. ... Peter Lunenfeld is director of the Institute for Technology and Aesthetics (ITA) and founder of mediawork: The Southern California New Media Group. ... Bill Moggridge is co-founder of the Silicon Valley_based design firm IDEO. He helped design the first laptop computer, the GRiD compass. ... Donald A. Norman is a professor emeritus of cognitive science at University of California, San Diego and a Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University, but nowadays works mostly with cognitive science in the domain of usability engineering. ... Jef Raskin outdoors, photographed by his son Aza Raskin. ...

External links

Organizations
In interaction design, an interaction design (ID) pattern is a general repeatable solution to a commonly-occurring usability problem in interface design or interaction design. ... Performance art is art where the actions of an individual or a group at a particular place and in a particular time, constitute the work. ...

  Results from FactBites:
 
AskTog: First Principles of Interaction Design (3814 words)
Of late, many web applications have reflected a lack of understanding of many of these principles of interaction design, to their great detriment.
The following principles, taken together, offer the interaction designer tremendous latitude in the evolution of a product without seriously disrupting those areas of consistency most important to the user.
Use the pinning actions of the sides, bottom, top, and corners of your display: A single-row toolbar with tool icons that "bleed" into the edges of the display will be many times faster than a double row of icons with a carefully-applied one-pixel non-clickable edge between the tools and the side of the display.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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