Comments on Introducing Interaction Design

udanium235 — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:50 GMT

Very interesting! Sounds like design activity may be interpreted as a rhetorical problem of effective dialogue, involving a necessary balance among the speaker’s intent/vision, the audience’s (or persona’s) needs/expectations, and the argument’s logic/rationale/value…hmm…

So perhaps having a persona (conceptual model of an intended audience type) facilitates the development of a meaningful dialogue, and thus, a more effective (balanced?) interaction design solution…?

George Olsen — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:28:19 GMT

Formal personas documentation? Not necessarily. But as Adam K. says, you need to have at least an idea who you’re designing for.

This is true even for “traditional” print design. One of the key things that got hammered into me in design school is that “art is about expression, design is about communcation.”

That’s to say, art is essentially a monologue, you do it regardless of whether anyone’s listening. Design (or journalism, or writing ad copy) is more like giving a speech. The communication’s still essentially one-way, but you do try to be aware of who your audience is and how to best get your message through to them.

I’ll up the ante a bit—and throw in my contribution to the meme pool—and say that interaction design is like conversation. Your work needs to not only to “speak” to the user/audience, but also _listen and respond._ The latter two are in fact a defining difference of interactive design.

So you can no more do interactive design without being aware of/engaged with the person(s) you’re designing for than you can hold a conversation with an empty room.

guy — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:49 GMT

hello, happy to chance upon this place. Got here by way of V-2.org. Can Christina cite an example of an “effective interaction design w/personas”?

Adam Korman — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:49 GMT

Okay, I’ll bite. Christina asked: “can you do effective interaction design without creating personas?” No, I can’t do effective interaction design without personas. In designing a “computer-human” interaction, there is always some model of the human involved in that interaction. It can be arbitrary, self-referential, or intentional (a persona). If the value of interaction design is in creating intentional behavior in systems (i.e., things happen by design rather than by accident), the human element of the system should also be explicitly described.

There are some nuts-and-bolts aspects of interaction design that you can do without an analysis of the specific audience (by applying basic design principles and good sense), but why? Even if you take just 5 minutes to create a sketchy persona based on flimsy information, at least you then have a target and rationale for the decisions you make.

If you’re not designing for a persona, then who are you designing for?

christina — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:49 GMT

A series of article on interaction design is welcomed, and that Bob is focusing on the web is mete: it is his specialty. I would vigorously suggest anyone with a software POV to contribute.
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/about/writeforus.php

IA’s tend to write more—maybe it is their content origins? But B&A is a place for all the structural design arts, from Interaction design to Infromation design.

Bob gets his twelve says, just as Jesse and Dan get to columnize their insights on a regular basis. In fact I laud Bob for his courage in comitting to a year of sharing his learnings. We should be grateful, not sniping. Writing is hard work. Let’s argue about his content instead. Disagree with his words, not his right to say them.

Finally, I am going to remind you all to keep it civil (see warning below comment form). Disagree, but be polite, and take personal arguments offline where they belong. I am quite comfortable deleting anyone who is rude, as comfortable as I am keeping dissenting views up. Disagree, but try to stay smart, not mean.

Thanks, and on with interaction design.

To kick it, I’d like to ask: can you do effective interaction design without creating personas?

Adam Greenfield — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:49 GMT

Erin, that is not at all clear.

What’s more, it’s not as if B&A is hard up for material, that I’m aware of; I know of at least one instance where a thoughtful, relevant, eminently appropriate piece was rejected outright on the grounds that it was “unfocused.”

I have a hard time seeing where a journal that can tolerate a twelve-parter can dismiss *any* submission as unfocused.

I’m not trying to be a s*&t-disturber, believe me. I’m just trying to get a handle on what B&A thinks its audience wants, and how someone I don’t remember being at any of the initial discussions can speak to what we “set out to create.”

I now return you from this spike of meta to your regularly-scheduled read.

Editorial team — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:28:18 GMT

I would like to clarify that Bob’s article is the first in a series of columns about Interaction Design. Rather than a twelve parter (where you must have the first part to understand the second part). The editorial policy at Boxes and Arrows is intended to cover not only the needs of the IA, but the interaction designer, the visual designer, the usability specialist, the practioner – both seasoned and new as well as the student.

Our goal is to cover the realm of what makes up the role we all play in this space and to meet the needs of the wider audience and we hope that folks will learn something new along the way. I believe the diversity of offerings – from pragmatic tutorials to theorical big thoughts – allows that to happen.

If you have alternative ideas for articles please submit them.

Laura S. Quinn — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:28:18 GMT

I’m confused. Are people actually saying that it’s pointless to do a set of articles on interaction design because the same people do IA and ID? This is a completely irrational argument in my mind… whoever does it, there is clearly stuff—task flows, error messages, etc—. inherent in ID that are separate from hierarchy/ taxonomy/ search issues that are common IA concerns. While I agree that a specialization in ID is a luxury that isn’t applicable to most of us, if you’re going to argue that there shouldn’t be a series of articles on ID because people don’t focus on it, than you might as well argue that a series of articles on deliverables or an article on user research is worthless because IAs do more than deliverables or user research.

There’s knowledge and tools important to ID; I for one would be happy to learn more about them.

Manny Calero — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:28:18 GMT

It seems like it’s time to break up the brick-and-mortar architecture profession. Rather than having a single profession, we need to break it into:

- Commercial
- Residential
- Functional

Wait! Maybe we don’t need to cast this world into the dark shadows of technicalities just yet. Enter the magic concept of “specialization”. Oooh… imagine a world where architects are architects, and they magically focus their skill and expertise on the problems of specific industries.

Whoa! I better stop now before I am hunted down and pinned to the rack for being a puny simpleton.

Kelli Covey — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:28:18 GMT

I agree that teasing apart IA and ID is a fruitless practice. With the the belt-tightening across the Internet business spectrum, my IA role increasingly includes information architecture, interaction design, user interface design, content design, and all the requirements gathering and strategy normally assocated with a business consultant as well. Not to mention sales! If there are people out there doing only ONE of these things, I’m happy to hear it. But I don’t think it does us any good to try to separate our skills into definable containers that map to job listings. If you’ve noticed, the job listings now require everything from designing task flows to understanding PERL. And I don’t see that changing any time soon.’

I’ll look forward to the remainder of the articles.

Kelli

Adam Greenfield — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:49 GMT

Sorry, but I think a twelve-part series is excessive, verging on obnoxious.

“I don’t think you’d hire the same person to design an application site like Ofoto as you would to design a content site like CNN.”

I wouldn’t hire a *person* at all, in either case. I’d hire a team of smart generalists, each capable of educating the other members of the team with regard to the nuances of their own area of greatest focus.

udanium235 — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:28:18 GMT

If the plan is set to focus on “interaction design for the web”, then perhaps it would be worthwhile to at least acknowldege the pivotal issues surrounding the concept of “interaction” as a starting point, in relation to communication and participation in various contexts as inspiration for designing good web applications.

For example, mobile device interaction, navigating your (physical) environment, kinetic display of info, automative interfaces, social dialogue mediated by objects and spaces, etc. are possibilities beyond the web but may be connected to it.

And this could open the door to how web applications can be integrated with mobile devices, ambient surroundings, lifestyle activities (living, working, playing) and domains (healthcare, consulting, etc.), thus expanding the scope of interaction and making the conversation more enrichening and valuable for many readers.

My basic feeling is that, while web design may indeed need to be discussed due to its contemporary prevalence (as the author alludes), that these discussions must not degrade into merely “web widgets”, “shopping carts”, and “homepages” (which would confine and frankly dull the dialogue) but instead expand outward to the expressive potentialities (to paraphrase Moholy-Nagy) that lie within “interaction”, whatever medium. This direction, I believe, would foster greater dialogue, richer ideas, inventive possibilities.

And that, I think, would serve boxesandarrows most favorably as well as its readership—information architects, UI designers, strategists, etc.

Bob Baxley — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:28:18 GMT

I don’t really want to rehash the debate about IA being a distinct specialty from ID so I’ll leave it at this: I don’t think you’d hire the same person to design an application site like Ofoto as you would to design a content site like CNN. While the two disciplines clearly have to work together, complex IA problems are different from complex ID problems and require a different set of skills and knowledge. Therefore, it’s worthwhile to talk about them independently, especially if the purpose of the discussion is to improve how they work together.

To your second point about the series being focused on interaction design for the Web, that’s certainly the plan as it stands. Although I agree that interactive design spans a variety of mediums, the Web is not only one of the most important of those mediums but also one of the most misunderstood. Whether or not we like it, browser-based interfaces are going to be with us for the foreseeable future. Rather than writing them off as “an unfortunate sidetrack” we should apply our skills and knowledge to make them as useful and satisfying as possible.

Perhaps we should have titled the article “Bringing Interaction Design to the Web”.

udanium235 — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:28:18 GMT

I too am glad to see such a series written up in the pages (screens?) of boxesandarrows. I am anxious to see what is written and discussed…

However, to echo Adam’s comment, I’d be very concerned and disappointed if this series limited itself to just the web as the sole medium of “interaction design”. The concepts, methods, and guiding principles of interaction advance useful and pleasurable design in all kinds of areas, including products, environments, and systems, even brand identity or fashion. Interaction design is NOT simply “web design”, (to equate it as such would draw the ire of many wonderful and intelligent designers who strive to do good design elsewhere) and in fact exploring how/why interaction occurs at, say, a coffee shop with objects and spaces can provide valuable sources for inspiration and debate when it comes to designing for the web or other venues.

Adam Korman — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:28:18 GMT

While I’m really glad to see a series that focuses on interaction design issues, I’m concerned about a couple of things, and would love to see some discussion:

1. Structure vs. behavior: teasing apart IA and ID

Trying to clearly define these as separate practices doesn’t make much sense to me, and seems to drag us back into the terminology debate that this community loves to rehash.

Isn’t “Structuring, organizing, and labeling” intimately tied to (if not the same as) “understand[ing] the subtleties and colloquialisms of both parties, ensuring that they can readily and efficiently communicate with one another”? Aren’t the issues of “finding and managing” equivalent to those described under “action/reaction” and “workflow”? Structure and behavior do not act independently, and shouldn’t be considered independently when designing systems (an application, web site, or whatever).

It’s not that IAs and IDs need help understanding the boundaries of their practices or better tools for working together, but that these things are intermingled (for the better), irrespective of the job titles of those involved in the process. The specific tools/practices of IA and ID exist along the same continuum, and it doesn’t do much good to tease these apart—some contexts require more IAish tools and others require more IDish tools.

2. A Focus on the Web

“The focus of this series is on the challenges inherent in the task of translating established product requirements into a browser-based interface.”

Although the idea of Interaction Designer as a job role/title gained currency during the dot-com boom, ID is certainly not tied to the platform of a browser (or even the Internet). As far as I’m concerned, browser-based interfaces are, for the most part, an unfortunate sidetrack in the progression of software design. While browser-based interfaces are an important topic, to tie this whole series of articles to this facet of Interaction Design is A Bad Idea. I would hate to see an important series of articles about Interaction Design only help to marginalize the profession into the ghetto of “web design.”