Thoughts on Interaction Design ch1-2

1.What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry challenges?

On page 31, Kolko describes interaction design,”Divergent and convergent thinking requires a mixture of analytical skills (logic, engineering, and the development of “appropriate solutions”) and creative skills (drawing, mapping, “blue sky thinking”). This mixture is a rare but required duality that must exist in a successful designer. … The constraints placed on the design are a mix of human, technical, and aesthetic boundaries. The difficulty lies in discerning the hidden constraints, which the process itself helps uncover, and balancing these with the more explicit constraints, often defined by a client or business executive. … A common misconception is that formal methods can only be used with very well- established ideas.” Interaction design is made up of “innovated new ideas and challenging traditional ways of considering a product and doing business.”(30-31).

2.What is interaction design, how its evolving, what fields does it draw knowledge from?

“Interaction Design is the creation of a dialogue between a person and a product, service, or system. This dialogue is usually nearly invisible and found in the minutiae of daily life — the way someone may hold his knife and fork while cutting into a steak or the way another person may automatically switch windows to check her Facebook wall every few minutes or so. Structuring this form of ethereal dialogue is difficult, as it occurs in a fourth dimension- over time. To design for behavior requires an understanding of the fluidity of natural dialogue, which is both for reactionary and anticipatory at the same time.” (13). Interaction Design is evolving as people change their needs and expectations of a product or service. It draws knowledge from what has already been done and what needs to be improved or ways to make life easier.