Upon first glance of the cover of Thoughts on Interaction Design, it seemed like I was in for an wacky read that was going to dive into some really crazy ideas of design that were going to be really foreign to me. But as they say, you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, and that was the case with this book. Most of the ideas were pretty simple, but important to know in this industry. The first very important thing the author brings up is one that is often forgotten amongst new designers. It is the fact that all ideas have to begin with a scenario or a problem. Another important thing I picked up on that I often forget myself is that we often give the aesthetic look to design the front seat while the actual functionality and purpose sometimes takes a back seat.
The book took an idea from some designers at Carnegie Mellon (which I’m actually headed to tomorrow to tour their design facilities!) that broke it down into six parts: defining the problem, discovering wants and needs, synthesizing, constructing, refining, and reflecting. There are a lot of challenges that are faced in todays design industry, especially now more than ever. The problem is that the world is rapidly evolving, and with that humans change in personalties and what they want and need. An interesting tidbit about interaction design is that it’s actually multiple fields of employment combined into one. Things like engineering, mass production, and marketing are just a few things that go into design.