Defining Interaction Design, Part II

I recently engaged the issue of Interaction design and its lack of attention during the development process that I often encounter. This article was primarily based on the book About Face 2.0 The Essentials of Interaction Design by Alan Cooper & Robert Reimann. While I am not trying to make a rampage for us poor Interaction designers, I do think a good set of arguments as a solid 'problem description' may help better understand how the issue can be approached. Possibly it will give the proper basis when addressing it with your project leaders, managers and clients. I found some more interesting statements about the subject, that come from the updated About Face 3 by the same authors, to break down the problem description from Part I, further down. The methods and techniques to properly implement Goal-Directed design, as the authors define it, I will address later on.

So here's some more interesting choices of words About Face 3 puts in...

Even when businesses become sensitive to their users, they are often powerless to change their products because the conventional development process assumes that the user interface should be addressed after coding begins— sometimes even after it ends. But just as you cannot effectively design a building after construction begins, you cannot easily make a program serve users’ goals once there is a significant and inflexible code base in place.

Design has, unfortunately, become a limiting term in the technology industry. For many developers and managers, the word has come to mean [...] a visual facelift on the implementation model. But design, when properly deployed [...] both identifies user requirements and defines a detailed plan for the behavior and appearance of products. In other words, design provides true product definition, based on goals of users, needs of business, and constraints of technology.

What strikes me is, everyone has some opinion about design. People in charge of projects regularly tell me: "That's what you like, but I like it differently. It is a matter of personal preference". This is not the case however with Java programming, Functional designing or the installation of a Storage Area Network that incorporates clearly defined steps. These people in charge totally overlook the fact Interaction designers have developed (or are blessed with at birth) a (strong) sense of 'empathy': the ability to feel what others are feeling. This is something other team members lack or have not made their profession of.

One of the most dangerous practices in product development is isolating designers from the users because doing so eliminates empathic knowledge.

The successful interaction designer must maintain her focus on users’ goals amid the pressures and chaos of the product-development cycle. Although we discuss many other techniques and tools of interaction in this book, we always return to users’ goals. They are the bedrock upon which interaction design should be practiced.

So Goal-Directed design is one way to overcome the issues described in these two posts. It focusses on a set of important questions during the definition and design phase of a digital product. I have rarely seen these questions addressed, so here goes...

• Who are my users?
• What are my users trying to accomplish?
• How do my users think about what they’re trying to accomplish?
• What kind of experiences do my users find appealing and rewarding?
• How should my product behave?
• What form should my product take?
• How will users interact with my product?
• How can my product’s functions be most effectively organized?
• How will my product introduce itself to first-time users?
• How can my product put an understandable, appealing, and controllable face on technology?
• How can my product deal with problems that users encounter?
• How will my product help infrequent and inexperienced users understand how to accomplish their goals?
• How can my product provide sufficient depth and power for expert users?

About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design

About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design, a completely updated volume presents the effective and practical tools you need to design great desktop applications, Web 2.0 sites and mobile devices. This book will teach you the principles of good product behavior and introduce you to Cooper's Goal-Directed Design, from conducting user research to defining your product's interaction using personas and scenarios. In short, About Face 3 will show you how to design the best possible digital products and services.

By Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann and David Cronin John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 0470084111