Life

Whence Interaction Design

I had lunch with Bob Baxley yesterday. He, Jesse and I are all New Riders authors all writing […]

I had lunch with Bob Baxley yesterday. He, Jesse and I are all New Riders authors all writing at about the same pace, so we exchange war stories as we go along, trying to glean insight from each other. And we started to discuss interaction design (the topic of his book), and how very odd it was that it doesn’t hae a community the way IA does. I can’t think of a single list devoted to it, nor a zine. There are few books and no conferences that I can think of.

Reading Boxes and Arrows: The indie life: Talking with Louis Rosenfeld I was surprised at Lou’s assertion that IA is more complex than IntD. Sure, on the web it’s still moderately limeted, but once you dig your teeth into even a slightly complex web ap, you really notice what a mess it can be… and software? Fergettaboutit. Interaction design for advanced software is as complex as any million page site. And when you get it right, its invisible, just like IA.

So where is the support group for IntD? Where are the conferences where they exchange their secrets? Or are they unsung heros, alone, caught between usability and engineering, just trying to make a good experience for their users.

Okay, that’s hyperbole, but really….

19 Comments

Add Yours
  2. 2
    christina

    Watch it buddy, or I’ll have to mention the dozens of conferences, magazines and dicussion groups devoted to graphic design… 🙂

    Truely, I think a community provides more than support, it allows the exchange of ideas and knowledge that leads to advancing the profession.

  4. 4
    mike

    Watch it buddy, or I’ll have to mention the dozens of conferences, magazines and dicussion groups devoted to graphic design… 🙂

    all they talk about is shoes.

  5. 5
    BlueWolf

    “And when you get it right, its invisible, just like IA.”

    I never noticed this, but as soon as I read it, I saw how true it is. Thanks for pointing that out.

  6. 6
    jz

    I sort of agree with Lou on one hand, and strongly disagree on another. You see, I’m not quite sure what interaction design is. I think of the kind of interaction design that old HCI folks tend to advocate as “old” interaction design. That sort of interaction design I see primarily concerned with operative kinds of interactions — does the product behave like it’s suppose to, is it easy to use, etc. That kind of interaction design is hard, but I’d agree with Lou that IA at the scale of a large enterprise is more difficult.

    But interaction design also has another, newer meaning, which in my mind is pretty closely related to (some might say the same thing as) experience design. Besides being concerned with operative interactions, this kind of interaction design is also concerned with reflective parameters of interactions — how does the design of the product effect the way people think and feel about it beyond its basic utility. That sort of design is extremely difficult.

    Certainly, drawing such a distinction is not completely unpromblematic. Obviously, operative parameters of a given design influence the reflective experience inasmuch as, say, a remote control that’s difficult to use might make one feel frustrated or annoyed. But there is a difference between setting a design goal of having something be easy, efficient, or satisfying to use compared with the intention of creating something that will having meaning and significance in someone’s life. And it’s in the latter design goal that I think the really interesting, difficult problems of interaction design lie, and the ones that make it every bit as challenging as IA.

  7. 7
    anne

    Easy. The interaction design people are on the IA lists, because there can’t be ID without IA (but there -can- be IA without ID. Odd, that.)

  8. 8
    Madonnalisa

    Actually the group who talks about the shoes the most…librarians.

    As for IntD and IA, I think IntD don’t even know it but they are IAs too. It will take time to accept it, but we have to accept that the first step to recovery is denial.

  9. 9
    chris

    So where is the support group for IntD? Where are the conferences where they exchange their secrets? Or are they unsung heros, alone, caught between usability and engineering, just trying to make a good experience for their users.

    Interaction Only conference – Miami 11/1
    http://www.ioconference.org/

  10. 10
    joe

    So I’m wondering…how can there be an IA without ID? Hmmmm…perhaps in something that doesn’t allow for interaction. So, in that case, perhaps data-oriented information architecture (that’s what I encounter all the time in my job and have to separate from human-oriented IA) has no interaction per se.

    Yet any Web IA, if humans interact with it on a computer (sounds like HCI, doesn’t it?), then there is an interaction design. Sort of like Terry Winograd discusses in Software by Design, an IA has an interaction design–which can be good or bad.

    I still assert that IA without an understand of usability is pretty much a waste of time. What we architect must be usable by the people whom we intend to use it–and this requires user research, it requires understanding of interaction, and it requires a cohesion between the sense of IA and ID.

    Or then again I could be wrong 🙂

  11. 11
    Elan

    There can be ID without IA. There can be IA without ID. IA is very complicated on a large scale, but ID can be equally complicated on a simple software scale. A lot of people are constrained to thinking about ID in terms of web sites which are relatively non-interactive. When you think in terms of software or advanced web apps, that is when ID becomes the bigger challenge to which IA is a small piece. I don’t believe there is a big community of IDs because there aren’t a lot of people doing this heavy interactive software. If they have been doing it for 10+ years, they are HCI folk. If they are much newer to it, they may refer to themselves as ID (as I do). I do consider myself an ID and I could probably do the heavy IA work with some help, but I don’t choose to. I would need a different relationship to language to take thrive in IA. Plus, the work I take on is more focused on interactivity than findability. Something like that…

  13. 13
    ben hyde

    What about the concept of Information Design (as opposed to InfoArch)?

    Some (and I am inclined to agree with them) would argue that this encompasses InfoArch and IntD
    see:
    http://hydesign.blogspot.com/2002_08_01_hydesign_archive.html#79885406
    and
    http://www.bogieland.com/infodesign/

    I agree there doesn’t seem to be much of a community around IntD – though there is of course within some of the individual facets: chiweb etc…

    I think this is in part to do with the wide variations within this area of work:
    programmers, interface design, graphics, animation, usability engineers, HCI, etc…
    all of which play a part (of varying size) within the broad area of IntD

    I reckon the reason IA has developed such a strong community is due to the focus on a particular area
    Even if there is the ongoing debate about what the area is exactly 😉

    I would be very interested in becoming part of a more focused IntD community…
    I think interaction design is a very subtle skill that is often overlooked
    – being able to design seemingly transparent interaction (i.e. that works intuitively and effectively) is a real achievement.

    I realise this may not be the place to put this –
    particularly as I will probably forget to come back and see if I get an answer 🙂

    But…
    – why doesn’t this window wrap my text? (oh – it was at NS4.7 thang – yes I do use it – as do the majority of our target audience :()

    and
    – why don’t I get gleanings via email :((( ?
    when I try to subscribe it tell me I am already alongside a quip about you not posting much ¿-|

Comments are closed.