[IxDA Discuss] A Semi-Theoretical Question

[James Leftwich, IDSA]

Here are a few advanced topics in interaction design that have arisen  
throughout my 23-year career in interaction design:

1)  Designing integrated physical device controls and software  
interactional architectures, rather than treating them as separate,  
sequential efforts.  This is a particularly crucial topic for the  
field of interactive product design.  Interaction design is still,  
unfortunately, too often thought of as just the software, when the  
full user experience must tightly and wholistically integrate the  
physical and software aspects of a product from its earliest conception.

2)  Developing Operating System-level and application framework user  
interfaces.  This addresses the issues involved in developing not  
just an application, but the user interface framework for an entire  
OS, from which all applications and interactions will be embodied.   
Issues involving developing UI components, interactional syntaxes,  
style guides, multiple application flows, etc.

3)  Strategies and methodologies for developing componentized  
interactional languages and patterns.  Complex systems requiring a  
wide variety of functions and flexibility are best approached not by  
attacking each function or need individually, but first creating a  
set of interactional components and syntactical rules, from which a  
wide variety of usage can be embodied.  In an iterative fashion,  
generally involving co-developing the interactional language along  
with the initial functional and interactional needs of the product or  
system, a logical and componentized system is developed.  This is a  
powerful approach to designing systems, which makes it easier for  
future functions or applications to be developed within a logical and  
simple language.  It also greatly benefits a wider range of user  
needs, through requiring users to only become familiar with the  
limited set of interactional components and syntactical conventions.

4)  Designing interfaces for small devices with limited physical  
controls, displays, and other sensorial feedback.  The overwhelming  
majority of interaction design is still limited to desktop software  
and web-based sites and applications.  This presents problems again  
and again when strategies and approaches that work in these domains  
are carried over to fundamentally different device and usage domains  
without regard to the wide range of fundamental differences between  
domains, and different strategies for successfully designing within  
them.

5)  Rapid Special Forces Design, Extreme Design Makeovers, and  
Skunkworks Approaches.  Issues involved in, strategies and  
methodologies for using small, high-level teams with executive-level  
mandates to effect large-scale design efforts on complex systems in  
short periods of time.

6)  Special topics in interaction design consulting.  Consultants  
face unique challenges in the discipline of interaction design.   
Being brought in late, having to work alone or in small teams, and  
with tiny budgets and tight schedules.  Topics include successfully  
establishing mandates at the highest levels in client corporations,  
the politics of design among sometimes competing departments  
(finance, engineering, marketing), techniques for successfully  
communicating complex design strategies, strategies for successfully  
cross-pollinating solutions between different interactional and  
product domains.

7)  The importance of apprenticing with experienced practitioners and  
the equal importance of mentoring proteges through side-by-side  
project experiences.  The field and discipline of interaction design  
is far more complex than has ever been described in textbooks and  
academic classes.  Interaction design is an applied art, involving  
putting fundamentals into dynamic practice.  The best and most  
powerful way to learn the complex art of interaction design is to  
seek out and work alongside an experienced practitioner.  Of equal  
importance to our field and its future is the responsibility of every  
experienced interaction designer to seek out less-experienced  
practitioners to teach and mentor in real world situations.


Jim

----------------------------------
James Leftwich, IDSA
Orbit Interaction
Palo Alto, California  USA
www.orbitnet.com



On Oct 11, 2006, at 10:47 PM, discuss- 
request at lists.interactiondesigners.com wrote:

> On 10/10/06, Dan Saffer <dan at odannyboy.com> wrote:
>>
>> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted
>> material.]
>>
>> If there was a book that covered advanced topics in interaction
>> design, what would those topics be?
>>
>> Dan