[IxDA Discuss] Interaction design is design of time

[panu.korhonen at nokia.com]

Interesting thread!

I like very much the concept of time for differentiating interaction
design from (some) other related design disciplines, like graphic design
and industrial design. Interaction is about the behavior of the thing in
time. A direct sign of this is the popularity of scenarios and use cases
for describing interaction. In that, the discrete events are ordered on
a sequential timeline. 

I'm working a lot with industrial designers who create the 3D appearance
of products. For them, the product usually "is" or "looks like", and the
product is the subject of the discussion. For interaction design, the
product is an object and a (sometimes implicite) user "does", like
"first the user presses this button, and then...". The discourse about
interaction design is different - it includes both time and the user.
For the industrial designer, the object will still be red if there would
be nobody there to look at it... (Jeff mentioned that interaction design
works with language; the differences in language designers use about and
in their design would need another thread.)

Time is difficult to present. For industrial design or graphic design,
if you show the object or design at hand, the audience will see all of
it at once (well, for 3D you may need to turn the object around a few
times). For interaction design, if you show one image, e.g. the starting
screen of the interaction, the audience will only see the tip of the
iceberg. It will take a lot of time and exploration by walking through
the different interaction paths to really see the full designed object
in interaction design. I think this is one of the reasons why
interaction design has a challenge in the organizations. Because it's
time based, with the short attention span of hectic business life will
never see and therefore don't fully appreciate the complexity of
interaction design. Anyone ever experienced an underestimated and
underbudgeted UI design project?

Regards,
Panu

>-----Original Message-----
>From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com 
>[mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On 
>Behalf Of ext Jeff Howard
>Sent: 05 April, 2006 07:50
>To: discuss at lists.interactiondesigners.com
>Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Interaction design is design of time
>
>[Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant 
>quoted material.]
>
>> Oleh Kovalchuke said:
>> The goal of interaction design is to remove time fluff
>
>I don't think that the goal of interaction design is 
>necessarily to remove time fluff. In some cases, efficiency 
>might be prized. In others, not. In some cases, flow might be 
>prized; other interactions are more cursory, or more 
>considered. Wasn't Myst all about time fluff?
>
>Interactions take place in the realm of time, but they also 
>take place in the realm of language, and color and form. I 
>don't think you can discount "space" quite so easily either. 
>Certainly not in physical interactions.
>
>> Dan Saffer said:
>> I wouldn't exactly say that it is the design of time, unless you are 
>> some sort of divine entity. :)
>
>The book Einstein's Dreams offers some nice insight into how 
>that might work...
>
>// jeff
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