Interaction Design I:

Designing for Interaction, chapters 1-3

Chapter1: What is Interaction Design?

Saffer likens interaction design to the process of “connecting people through the products they use” (3). He describes it as an applied art, offering solutions to real problems in order to foster communications between humans, and to a lesser extent, between human beings and non-human entities such as a computer or digital device. Saffer stresses that interaction design creates connection between people through products and that the art is not about connecting people to the product itself.

Interaction design is a young field and is closely tied to a variety of other disciplines, including industrial design (i.e. the study of human interaction with machines), graphic design (i.e. the practice of creating a visual language to communicate content), user-experience design (i.e. the practice of looking at visual, interaction and industrial design and ensuring they’re in harmony), human-computer interaction, usability engineering and human factors. Interaction design falls entirely under the practice of user-experience design. Information architecture is concerned with how to best structure and label content so that users find the information they need.

While each of these disciplines is distinct, they overlap a great deal. To create a successful product, many of the aforementioned disciplines must work in harmony.

Chapter 2: Defining the Project

After a designer understands the problem that he or she aims to ameliorate through improved interaction design, he or she can follow one of four major approaches to find a solution. These four approaches are:

• User-centered design (UCD) – “Users know best”; Focuses on the needs and goals of users; Users guide the design process; Designers translate user needs and goals into a design. Pros: designers’ experiences can conflict with what users need from a product. Focusing on the user eliminates this conflict. Cons: Relying on users for design input can result in a product with a narrow focus.
• Activity-centered design – Focuses on the tasks that need to be completed; Users perform the tasks while designers create tools for the activities; Designers observe user behavior and are less interested in goals. Pros: All tasks necessary to perform an activity are accounted for in a design. Cons: Automating too many tasks can de-skill humans; focusing on single tasks can make designers lose sight of the “big picture”.
• Systems design – Users an established arrangement of components to create a design solution; Users are deemphasized in favor of context; Focuses on the parts of a system; Users set the goals of the system while designers ensure all parts of the system are in place
  Genius design – Relies on the skills and experience of the designer; Users validate designs while designs are inspired by the designers themselves.

Chapter 3: The Elements of Interaction Design

The basic materials involved in designing solutions are motion, space and time. “Movement through space takes time to accomplish” (47).

• Motion: Motion is often a trigger for action, while the triggered action or feedback generated often involves motion as well.
• Space: Motion occurs in both 2D and 3D space. Often interaction design involves a combination of physical and digital space (e.g. manipulating a control vs. downloading a file).
• Time: All interactions take place over time. Interaction designers should be aware of the time interactions take.

Appearance is also a critical part of interaction design as the affordances of a design provide clues for the user as to how they are to interact with a device. Other import factors to consider when designing for interaction are texture and sound.

Laws of Interaction Design:

• Moore’s Law: Every two years, computer processing power with double
• Fitt’s Law: The time it takes to move from a starting position to a final target is determined by two factors: the distance to the target and the size of the target. Clickable objects should be a reasonable size. Edges and corners of screens are excellent places to position menus and buttons. Pop-up menus can be opened more quickly than pull-down menus.
• Hick’s Law: The time it takes for users to make decisions is determined by the number of possible choices they have. Users will more quickly make choices from one menu of 10 items than from two menus of 5 items each.
• The Magical Number Seven: The human mind is best able to remember information in chunks of seven items
• Tesler’s Law of the Conservation of Complexity: Complexity is inherent to every process. At the point beyond which you can’t simplify a process you can only move the complexity from one place to another.
• Poka-Yoke Principle: When designers put constraints on products to prevent errors, forcing users to adjust their behavior and correctly execute an operations.
• Direct and Indirect Manipulation: Direct manipulation refers to the process where digital objects are manipulated directly in order to mimic an action that might be performed in the physical world. In indirect manipulation, users use a command or menu option to alter an object.
• Feedback and Feedforward: Feedback is some indication that something has happened as a result of interaction. Feedforward is knowing what will happen before you perform an action (i.e. cues or messages). Feedforward allows users to perform an action with confidence because it gives them an idea of what will happen next.

Favorite Quote from Larry Tesler when asked about the personal qualities that make a good interaction designer: “Enough confidence to believe you can solve any design problem and enough humility to understand that most of your initial ideas are probably bad. Enough humility to listen to ideas from other people that may be better than your own and enough confidence to understand that going with other people’s ideas does not diminish your value as a designer.”

Characteristics of Good Interaction Design:

• Trustworthy: Before using a tool, you must trust it can do the job
• Appropriate: Design solutions must be appropriate to the culture, situation and context in which they are used.
• Smart: Products need to prevent users from making mistakes or from working harder than necessary.
• Responsive: Responses from devices should be immediate and uninterrupted.
• Clever: Design solution should be intelligent but not condescending.
• Ludic: Design solutions should be playful and pleasurable.