What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry’s challenges?
- There are Six Core Components in the process of design that Kolko defines (Page 22) as follows:
- Define- team building; technical assessment; hypothesizing
- Discover- contexts; benchmarking; user needs
- Synthesize- process maps; opportunity map; frameworks; personas; scenarios
- Construct- features and functions; behavior; design language; interactions and flow models; collaborative design
- Refine- evaluation; scoping; interaction; specification
- Reflect – post mortem; opportunity map; benchmarking; market acceptance
- Some Challenges in the Industry:
- Discovering the needs and wants of potential users. Needs and wants of users is not always made completely obvious. These “hidden wants, needs, and desires” are things that designers need to dig for and design for in advance. The potential user is not always like the designer, therefore, the designer needs to design for the audience and not themselves. Designers cannot be selfish. Going to the Users is often the best way to figure out how they will move within an app/design.
- Staying focused within the context of the project sometimes proves to be a challenge. Designers want to be able to have everything, but the book makes it a point to stay focused to find more detailed information.
- I don’t know if this is a challenge, but the book mentions divergent thinking. Kolko says that is can sometimes be tricky because it can get very complicated very fast, but it can often lead to extremely innovative ideas.
- Benchmarks for success for prototypes and user testing is muddy. There is always a lot of self-criticizing and this makes it harder for designs/projects to get off of the ground and into further production.
What is interaction design, how it’s evolving. What fields does it draw knowledge from?
- Interaction Design:
- Design that is honed in on the way something or someone (the user) will interact with the technology and functions of the technology. The function is paid attention to just as much as the physical appearance of the system. Interaction design uses function and design elements to make a system work efficiently and effectively for the desired user.
- How Interaction Design is Evolving:
- Other fields have to be involved. Outside sources need to be considered and consulted. As answered in the next question, interaction designers draw knowledge from other fields to help improve the function and reception of their work. By outside sources, I mean other companies. With the app that we have been working on in class, like many other apps that already exist, we would need to consult with gas companies and convenient stores to come up with a points system that they would all agree upon. Then we would have to get them all using the same type of technology to make out app function at its full capacity and properly. There is more than just the design that goes into the success of an interaction designer’s project.
- Fields that Interaction Design Draws Knowledge from:
- There is a lot of mention in the book about pulling information and knowledge from graphic designers, industrial designers, and user interface developers. These fields all bring forth knowledge about design, technology, and user experience to help strengthen interaction designers’ work.
Source: Kolko, J. (2011). Thoughts on interaction design: A collection of reflections. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann.