[IxDA Discuss] A Semi-Theoretical Question

[Marc Rettig]

Hi,
Advanced topics in interaction design? Thanks for thinking this way, because
really, most of what we all really do is "advanced" compare to what's in
most of the books. </whine>

A couple of topics that come to mind...

Distributed interactions
Designing for situations where the "interface" is scattered across more than
one device. This is coming up more and more often. Relatively easy cases are
things like TV + Remote, where there are difficult choices and trade-offs to
make about where to situation some of the functionality. I can make a
four-button remote, but then I have to load the soft interface on the TV
with more complexity. 

More difficult cases: I'm managing my weight for health reasons, so there's
a PC interface, maybe a web connection with my physician, a body monitor,
and who knows... my shoes? Or more generally, it is increasingly the case
that services and products are spread across phone, computer, web, and lord
knows what other devices. Many of which are simply platforms we can employ,
but we can't really change or even predict what the actual buttons and menus
might be. 

Most difficult case: the Holy Grail project of creating an interface to an
institution: a company, a government service, a hospital. This of course
requires much more than interaction design to actually be able to execute
such a thing. Maybe I'm inflating "interaction design" to the point where it
will surely just pop. 

All that said, to some degree, we are more and more faced with interactions
that span multiple interfaces, some of them not under our control, and a
book that shed light on this challenge would be welcome. 
 

Designing with awareness of / intent to create ripple effects
We know of course that introducing any interactive product into a situation
changes that situation. But human interactions, and especially social
situations, are terribly difficult to understand, never mind effect in a
predictable way. 

But techniques from interaction design seem to be useful for this, and
certainly some of us (most of us?) are called upon to do this all the time.
Sometimes the point of our designs are not so much to deliver new
functionality, but to foster new kinds of conversations between people, for
example. (That's one reason I like sticky notes so much -- I can use them to
design an activity to get people out of their chair and make stuff instead
of spouting opinions at each other.) 

There are people out there that know a lot about this. I'd love it if
someone put what they know in a book. Okay, maybe it's a set of books. 

- Marc

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Marc Rettig
Fit Associates, LLC
marc at fitassociates.com