[IxDA Discuss] "Design" in Interaction Design?

[Katie Albers]

The definition issues keep coming up in this forum, not surprisingly. 
What this field is called, what its practitioners are called and who 
is or is not in the field has been under active debate for a very 
long time. I've seen people working in this area of interaction who I 
think would be generally acknowledged as legitimate participants in 
this forum and who have held these titles:

Interactive Design Engineer, HCI Strategist, Interaction Architect, 
User Experience Developer, Human Factors Specialist, Interaction 
Analyst, and many others

I'm including here only those whose responsibility focuses on 
creating and executing interactions within an application (for lack 
of a better term) -- not those who are pure theorists nor those who 
are pure graphic designers nor those who are pure coders...etc.

and I can't help wondering whether we might be able to have more 
common ground in our discussions if we took a step back and focused 
our definitions on a different level, rather than debating what may 
be lower-level details. I know the first rule I learned about 
defining things in second grade was that you aren't allowed to use 
the word in the definition of the word. In that spirit, I submit:

Interaction Design is the creation and definition of elements and 
processes that allow a human being to use an object effectively. This 
frequently, though not always, include creating visual elements, 
definitions of paths, resolution of technical issues, questions of 
usability, and standardizing navigational requirements, as well as 
many other aspects.

Katie
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Katie Albers
katie at firstthought.com