All posts about
Interaction design

Interaction design defines the structure and content of communication between two or more interactive “beings” to understand each other. (source: Wikipedia)

How Print Design is the Future of Interaction

“There are three areas that I covered in the talk. First, how the visual language of UI has evolved and been shaped in to what we find in the interfaces we are familiar with today. Second, I’ll discuss why I think a new approach to the visual design of interfaces, influenced by Print Design, is emerging and necessary. And finally, why I think Print Design is an important influence to the next evolution of UI, and what we (as UI and Interaction Designers) can learn from the discipline of Print.” (Mike Kruzeniski)

Motion and The Clay of Interaction Design

“I am in constant pursuit of the ‘clay’ of interaction design. Even if that clay is intangible, if we are to consider ourselves a true design discipline there must be something that we are manipulating. Once we understand what it is that we are manipulating we will be better able to communicate to all our stakeholders the intentions of what it is the interaction designer designs. One possible property of said “clay” may be motion or movement.For almost all interactions we place our body in motion. Even speaking requires muscles to move in order to work. There has been a ton of work done on motion as an aesthetic quality towards an audience, even if that audience is just perceived. What I’m interested in is motion as an aesthetic regardless of perceived or real audience. The question I ask is if certain movements just feel better than others at an aesthetic level and further that perception is manipulated by other interacting factors.” (David Malouf ~ Johnny Holland Magazine)

My So Called Service Design Life

“There is a fierce debate about the relationship between service design (SD) and interaction design (IxD) here in the United States, particularly among interaction designers. The discussion often devolves into hostile crossfire between two camps: one that believes that the service design is a type of interaction design, and another that believes that the two disciplines are separate and distinct. When a teenager is a smart, compelling, interesting, independent, charismatic, hardworking, analytical, talented, humorous, knock-kneed being, a parent would rightly feel a great sense of pride. Interaction designers — and those whose careers, and sources of income are indebted to that practice — have very good reasons to hold strongly to the idea that service design is indeed a chip off the old block.” (Renna Al Yassini ~ Cooper Journal)

Interaction Eleven: Bill Verplank Opening Keynote

“Bill Verplank is a human-factors engineer with a long career in design, research and education. As a fresh ME PhD from MIT he worked eight years at Xerox on the testing and refinement of what we now call the ‘desktop metaphor’: bit-map graphics, keyboard and mouse, direct manipulation. For six years, he worked with Bill Moggridge at IDTwo and IDEO doing ‘interaction design’ – bringing the insights from computers to the industrial design of medical instruments, GPS navigation, mobile phones, and new input devices (keyboards, track-balls, mice). From IDEO, he moved to Interval Research for 8 years of innovating design methods (observation, body-storming, scenarios, metaphors) and researching active force-feedback (‘haptics’). (…) He is known for sketching as he talks.” (IxDAvideos)

Interaction Design Association in Europe

“Throughout Europe, the dialogue on Interaction Design in academia and business is pursued from many different angles, nurtured by the region’s great diversity of national identities and socio-economic conditions. To allow IxDA to effectively utilize those kinds of regional premises, the global organization has assigned Coordinators for the worlds main geographical areas. In Europe, the Regional Coordination promotes to embrace the areas diversity and encourages cross-national collaboration amongst its chapters to facilitate a broad and manifold dialogue on Interaction Design.” (IxDA European Region)

Passive magic, design of delightful experience

“It is noteworthy when the design of an experience is so compelling that you feel wonder and delight. When designed right it feels totally natural, some might even say it is truly ‘intuitive’. No training is needed, no set-up, no break in flow, the tool fits seamlessly, improving without disrupting your experience; it’s like a little bit of magic.” (Stefan Klocek ~ Cooper Journal)

TEI 2011 Keynote: Bounce Back by Gilian Crampton Smith

“Overall the argument was that embodied interaction works because it draws on knowledge we have. An example is that two physical things cannot be in exactly the same place and another one is that things stay where they are if there is no force moving them. There are clear limitations to the interaction with physical objects that give indications how to use it; she referenced a paper on an exploration of physical manipulation.” (Albrecht Schmidt – User Interface Engineering)

The Metaphor of the System (Part 2)

“When considering the structure of a building, architects often define its central, organizing idea as part of their ideation and design process. This unifying idea is known as the parti. The overall expression and movement of people through the space, the actual flow that happens through daily use, emanates from and returns to this fundamental idea.” (David Sherwin ~ ChangeOrder) Also, part 1

The Essence of Interaction Design (Part I): Designing Virtual Contexts for Interaction

“With this column, I’m introducing a multipart series on what I consider to be the essence of interaction design for application user experiences. First, I’ll lay the groundwork for this series by describing the role of interaction design, then I’ll embark on my exploration of the essence of interaction design by discussing the design of virtual contexts for interaction.” (Pabini Gabriel-Petit ~ UXmatters)

An interview with Bill Verplank

“Back in the late 1980s, Bill Verplank, when working at what would become IDEO, stopped calling what he did ‘user-interface design’, and instead coined a new term: ‘interaction design’. His work over the years has included Xerox Parc, IDTwo/IDEO, and collaborations with design schools such as the RCA, MIT and Carnegie Mellon. Steve Baty talked with him about interaction design.” (Steve Baty ~ Johnny Holland Magazine)

Designing Media

“In Designing Media, Bill Moggridge examines connections and conflicts between old and new media, describing how the MSM (‘MainStream Media’) have changed and how new patterns of media consumption are emerging. The book features interviews with thirty-seven people who have made significant creative contributions to the design and development of media, ranging from the publisher of the New York Times to the founder of Twitter. (…) You can download any or all of the Chapters here as pdfs, and the videos as QuickTimes. The videos are sized at 1024 pixels width, so that they fit a standard slide format in PowerPoint or Keynote.” (Bill Moggridge) courtesy of markvanderbeeken

Information as a Material

“This talk will discuss what it means to treat information as a material, the properties of information as a design material, the possibilities created by information as a design material, and approaches for designing with information. Information as a material enables The Internet of Things, object-oriented hardware, smart materials, ubiquitous computing, and intelligent environments.” (Mike Kuniavsky ~ Kicker Studio D3)

The IxD Library: A collection of materials related to interaction design

“(…) a collection of books, articles, and presentations of interest to interaction designers. It attempts to not be the definitive collection of every piece of content about interaction design, only the best and most influential. It is also strictly (as is possible) about interaction design and not usability, information architecture, visual design, human factors, or even general experience design, although certainly all of those fields affect and exist alongside interaction design in the field.” (About)