What makes up interaction design and what are some of the industry’s challenges?
Interaction design is made up of six different phases in completing a project. It involves defining the design problem or opportunity, discovering hidden wants, needs, and desires, synthesizing, creating, refining, and reflecting. It is a complex process of attempting to understand users and what they are looking to obtain from the final output. Challenges to the industry include the complexity in people’s changing wants and desires, changing lifestyles, new technologies, and maximum usability efforts.
What is interaction design, how its evolving. What fields does it draw knowledge from?
Essentially, interaction design is “a creative process focused on people” (pg 20). Based on how people react to and interact with the world around them, interaction designers design engaging user interfaces intended to offer maximum user satisfaction and usability. With evolution in technology comes evolution in interaction design. Changes among people also impact the process in interaction design. Among other fields, it draws knowledge from marketing, engineering, and distribution. Marketing is essential to ensure that the brand is both consistent and compelling. Knowledge and expertise in engineering ensures that a product is functional, which becomes increasingly important in new technology. Distribution knowledge is critical in moving a product into the market in a way that will make it thrive in a timely and cost-effective way. In addition, knowing ethnographic information about people and using language to appeal to them will aid interaction designers in successfully completing their tasks.