[IxDA Discuss] Interaction design is design of time

[dave at ixdg.org]

There are a few issues rolling around this thread.

1st I want to commend the original poster for bringing up this issue. I
think I definitely agree with the core aspect of the post which is to
suggest that time is a key component to what interaction designers are
trying to manipulate.

In my sessions at the IA Summit, I used the phrase, "Time is our new
constant companion." New in the sense that for IAs, they previously dealt
with content and information as their primary focus, but more and more of
them are dealing with interaction design as a core requirement of the
solutions they are developing.

I have been trying to develope a concept of what are the core foundational
elements that an interaction designer manipulates in order to create a
solution. I'm concentrating on the purest pieces of IxD and avoiding areas
of presentation, in so far as they don't effect the interaction design,
which I hold to the definition on the IxDA web site. I summarize as simply
the design of the behavior of interactive digital systems.

Time is definitely an important foundational element we manipulate. And
with that I have to disagree with Dan and his assertion that we don't
design time. We design time in the sense that time is a mental construct
and is very relative through various experiential elements. I recommend
that people read the book "Einstein's Dreams" as a great way to learn to
explore time. I read it before I was a designer and it wasn't until this
thread that I realized  how much this fairly otherwise lame book was
helpful for me to think about time as a device that I design and equally
important design for.

Time can be broken down into a few types when we think about designing for
it within interactive systems:
1. posture - how much time do I spend and with what level of concentration
in a given application.
2. flow - how much time does it take to complete a task
3. management - how can I mitigate the perception of wasted time
4. efficiency - does my solution take less time than without my solution
(note, you don't always want things to take less time).
5. physicality - how long does it take me to type, mouse, or use other
external devices (think fitt's law)
There are more for sure.

There are also more criteria in designing behavior than just time. But
time does things that the other criteria don't. Designing for time
requires that we experience the results to understand their effect. This
is why prototyping is so important for interaction design practice.

Back to the other parameters. I know there are more of them, but the one
that speaks loudest to me is "dialog". yes, dialogs exist over time, but
dialogs are also about tone, presense and personality. Two great IA Summit
presentations come to mind that are importnat to dialog. One is the Kevin
Cheng piece about Comics. Comics is a great tool for designing dialog, and
for getting an emotional experience of it. the other was the presentation
on personality being engendered in objects. I can't remember the details,
but also a great piece.

While I think that Time is really important to our work as IxD types, I
would call it primary, and would call it one of the components that truly
differentiates us. But it is not the only piece, that's for sure.

-- dave