Interaction design

Designing Behavior in Interaction: Using Aesthetic Experience as a Mechanism for Design

"As design moves into the realm of intelligent products and systems, interactive product behavior becomes an ever more prominent aspect of design, raising the question of how to design the aesthetics of such interactive behavior. To address this challenge, we developed a conception of aesthetics based on Pragmatist philosophy and translated it into a design approach. Our notion of Aesthetic Interaction consists of four principles: Aesthetic Interaction (1) has practical use next to intrinsic value, (2) has social and ethical dimensions, (3) has satisfying dynamic form, and (4) actively involves people's bodily, cognitive, emotional and social skills. Our design approach based on this notion is called 'designing for Aesthetic Interaction through Aesthetic Interaction', referring to the use of aesthetic experience as a design mechanism. We explore our design approach through a case study that involves the design of intelligent lamps and outlines the utilized design techniques. The paper concludes with a set of practical recommendations for designing the aesthetics of interactive product behavior." (Ross, P. R. & Wensveen, S. A. G. ~ International Journal of Design 4.2)

Posted on August 31, 2010 | Permalink

Jodi Forlizzi on Service Design

"Interaction design encompasses human interaction with objects, people, environments and systems. It's not a widely held perspective outside of the Pittsburgh diaspora." (Jeff Howard ~ Design for Service)

Posted on August 26, 2010 | Permalink

Six Questions from Kicker: Kim Goodwin

"It wasn’t when I got my first job as a designer, I felt I had to achieve some degree of skill before I deserved the label. I'm not even sure where I had set that internal bar, but it took at least a couple of years. The beauty of interaction design being a relatively new profession is that it’s been easy for people to get into the field. The problem with interaction design being a relatively new profession is the same thing…there are lots of people with the job title who have great intentions and no idea what they're doing. This can affect perceptions of the profession as a whole, which is one of many reasons I think it's important to evangelize good techniques." (Kicker Studio)

Posted on July 13, 2010 | Permalink

My Heart is in The Work

"In 1900, Andrew Carnegie quietly declared that his 'heart is in the work' – that he had found an endeavor worth pursuing, and that he would passionately follow-through on that endeavor until it was complete. We interaction designers feel that passion on a daily basis, as we’ve found ourselves at the heart of industry, policy, and culture. Our endeavors are worth pursuing and we approach them with the whole of our hearts. We build the artifacts and frameworks that support engagement, that keep us entertained, aroused, engaged and productive. We are building the culture we live in, and we possess the capability to enable massive change in an increasingly fragmented and tense world. This talk will examine our ability to affect change at the intersection of experience, behavior, meaning, and culture, and will emphasize our responsibility to approach our work with philanthropic enthusiasm that would make Carnegie proud." (Jon Kolko - IxDA)

Posted on July 01, 2010 | Permalink

The Problem with Great Ideas

"Even great ideas have a limited shelf life. Bill Buxton has some stern words of advice for those looking to rest on their laurels." (Business Week)

Posted on June 10, 2010 | Permalink

interactions: Business, Culture, and Society

"Our cover story puts an explicit emphasis on what has been an implicit theme of interactions over the past two years: the desire to improve the world around us through interaction design." (Jon Koiko - interactions XVII.3)

Posted on April 26, 2010 | Permalink

Industry trends in prototyping

"Prototypes are meant to be a cost-effective way of experimenting with ideas. They are generally considered part of the pre-planning phase, rather than part of the construction or manufacturing process that results in the final product—although obviously the discoveries made during the process of prototyping should ultimately both inform and shape the construction process." (Dave Cronin ~ Cooper)

Posted on April 20, 2010 | Permalink

Common Ground

"In the modern, agile world, programmers defend themselves against changing requirements by showing customers the program as often as possible, and by being able to make rapid changes to suit the customers expressed needs. Interaction designers defend themselves against uncooperative programmers by doing ever more detailed design and documenting it with greater accuracy, detail, and precision." (Alan Cooper)

Posted on March 31, 2010 | Permalink

Taming Goliath: Selling UX to Large Companies 2/2

"Collaborating effectively can be difficult for large companies. Projects can involve multiple locations, people, systems, and other outside companies. Large companies also tend to be departmental rather than project-focused, and this can hinder working together. But, being able to bring people together is key to delivering successful sites for large companies. Here are some tools and techniques to improve collaboration on projects." (Alan Colville - UX Booth)

Posted on March 30, 2010 | Permalink

Fred Wilson’s 10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps

"In February 2010 Fred Wilson, a New York based tech investor, spoke at the annual Future of Web Apps Miami conference. His talk, clocking in at just under 30 minutes, looks at his top 10 principles for creating a successful web app. A full transcript is available too." (Keir Whitaker - Think Vitamin)

Posted on March 30, 2010 | Permalink

Interaction10: How to Design an Experience for Experience Designers?

"Collaborating with a large team of designers, who all worked as volunteers, we decided to approach the conference experience as designers creating a service, taking every aspect of the experience into account. We thought through the lifecycle of the event, in light of the needs and motivations of the 600+ participants at the event, in their various roles from attendees and speakers to sponsors, volunteers, and conference staff. We used our empathy as designers to imagine what was important to each user at each stage of the experience. And while not everything worked out exactly as we planned, based on feedback, I think conference was a success. Here are a few things we learned along the way." (Jennifer Bove - Fast Company)

Posted on March 26, 2010 | Permalink

Web App Masters: Designing for Interesting Moments

"In his Designing for Interesting Moments presentation at the Web App Masters Tour in San Diego, CA, Bill Scott outlined several rich interaction design principles and showed them in action within several Web applications." (the notes of LukeW)

Posted on March 25, 2010 | Permalink

Content: Not Always King

"The strategy you adopt when tackling a project needs to take this continuum in mind. If your product is about content consumption, content is king and you should do due diligence and start from a content strategy perspective. Users of those products are coming to be informed or entertained and need the content to be front-and-center; the product is in service to displaying the content in as appropriate a manner as possible. The meaning of the content matters; you wouldn't display a cartoon the same way you’d display an analysis of the stock market. At least, not usually." (Dan Saffer - Kicker Studio) - Goes back to the old web app (code) versus doc (data) distinction.

Posted on March 22, 2010 | Permalink

Designing for Awareness at SXSWi

"Interaction designers talk a lot about a user’s emotional experience, but they understand very little about what motivates people to engage. How can designers understand triggers (signals, facilitators, and sparks) that help to change people’s behavior? frog VP of Creative Robert Fabricant investigates." (Robert Fabricant - frogdesign)

Posted on March 22, 2010 | Permalink

The Craft of Interaction Design

"I've been involved in developing what I would say is the craft of interaction design. A craft is a way of working that you develop entirely through experience without thinking about rationalizing it or systematizing it. And I believe that craft is essential to interaction design, and always will be. But I also believe that there could be ways of thinking about interaction design, ways of generalizing principles from experience and existing knowledge, just as in the twenties general principles about composition and graphic design were developed at the Bauhaus, or a new grammar of film was invented by Eisenstein and written about by Arnheim. These ways of thinking about practice make a platform in which people coming after us can build without them needing to invent everything from the start." (Gillian Crampton-Smith 2007)

Posted on March 09, 2010 | Permalink

Meaningful Innovation Relies on Interaction and Service Design

"Interaction designers can play a key role in creating a more meaningful, sustainable, and post-consumer world. come learn about frameworks and approaches that help designers make real change for customers." (Nathan Shedroff - Interaction10 videos)

Posted on March 01, 2010 | Permalink

Service as Design

"Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot from watching.” Over the last several years, a unique set of students has been challenged to think about design for healthcare services. In my role as a professor at Carnegie Mellon I had the opportunity to observe their work and it offered many insights into design, design thinking, and just how big the healthcare service challenge is. In my new role in Microsoft's FUSE lab I’m looking at the future of social experience. My experience with the students and healthcare exposed the underlying notion that people participating in service—whether providers, consumers, or others that are actively involved—are actually designing as they participate in the service. If we accept the service as design lens, designers may need to see their role differently—from one of developing static objects and environments—to one of creating new methods for modeling experience, and skilling everyone to be active participants in design during the service experience." (Shelley Evenson - Interaction10 videos)

Posted on March 01, 2010 | Permalink

Designing User Interfaces For Business Web Applications

"Business Web application design is too often neglected. I see a lot of applications that don’t meet the needs of either businesses or users and thus contribute to a loss of profit and poor user experience. It even happens that designers are not involved in the process of creating applications at all, putting all of the responsibility on the shoulders of developers. This is a tough task for developers, who may have plenty of back-end and front-end development experience but limited knowledge of design. This results in unsatisfied customers, frustrated users and failed projects. So, we will cover the basics of user interface design for business Web applications. While one could apply many approaches, techniques and principles to UI design in general, our focus here will be on business Web applications." (Janko Jovanovic - Smashing Magazine)

Posted on February 25, 2010 | Permalink

SpoolCast: Interesting Moments with Bill Scott

"Bill speaks about both patterns—successful interaction models for common interactions - and anti-patterns. By showing what not to do, anti-patterns often provide insight on the right way to do something." (Brian Christiansen - User Interface Engineering)

Posted on February 24, 2010 | Permalink

New Ways of Interaction

"This channel is a collection of projects about newer ways of human and physical interaction. It features interactive installations and systems with a strong focus on technologies such as multi-touch, tangible and gestural interfaces, augmented reality and physical computing." (@Jens Franke)

Posted on February 18, 2010 | Permalink

Service Design: An Interaction Design Perspective

"What is service design? How is it different from interaction design? As an interaction designer with service design education and experience, offer my insights into what role interaction designers have in this emerging area of design." (Jamin Hegeman)

Posted on February 15, 2010 | Permalink

Live at Interaction’10

"The first day of Interaction 10 in the wonderful city of Savannah, Georgia, kicked off without a hitch. Though eventually everyone was plagued by spotty, windy rain storms, the general pulse of the conference was positive and uplifting. Attendees were still talking about some of the great workshops from the day before, and they carried that energy over into today’s sessions. If one thing had to describe the overall theme of the first day it would be the importance of providing meaning in the work that we do. Below are recaps of the opening and closing keynotes, as well as some of the sessions from the day. (...) After a night of some great parties, and even better conversation, the second day of Interaction 10 began with a preview of the new IxDA.org website redesign. The team doing the redesign covered all the great new features that are coming, and went into detail on how local groups will be able to leverage the new site for their own networks and events. The excitement from yesterday was easily carried over, and people were pumped to see what the presenters had in store for us today." (Niklas Wolkert & Brad Nunnally - Johnny Holland Magazine)

Posted on February 07, 2010 | Permalink

Thoughts on Apple's iPad

"The iPad is not a laptop nor is it a smart phone. It is a couch device, a bedroom device (don't read that the wrong way), and a kitchen device (swivel it to cook from a recipe you find online). In all these places, a laptop always felt wrong. The iPad is optimized for surfing the Web, reading blogs/news/books, watching TV shows, playing casual games, listening to music, managing personal productivity (calendar, contacts) and looking at photos. Expecting it to do what a laptop does is the wrong frame of reference." (Luke Wroblewski)

Posted on January 28, 2010 | Permalink

What Makes Design Intuitive?

"Using examples of web sites, applications, devices, and more, guest lecturer Jared Spool tackles factors that contribute to counter-intuitive design, and narrows down when design is intuitive." (Jared Spool - MFA in Interaction Design)

Posted on January 26, 2010 | Permalink

Apple's Proposed Multi-touch User Interface System

"(...) these proposals outline an integrated interaction model of virtual "floating" controls that are specific to the mode or application the system is in. The controls are accessed and manipulated through touch-based gestures, combinations of mutli-touch inputs, and/or inputs detected through sensors. Users get haptic, audible, and visual feedback when using these input methods to interact with the system's set of virtual controls." (LukeW)

Posted on January 19, 2010 | Permalink

Interaction Design's Early Formal Education & Beyond

"I believe that there has been a huge paradigm shift in the very nature of design practice and a growing shift in its education. And if we are not to acknowledge this shift at the core of education and career development we are doing a disservice to those who are interested in coming up the ranks as young interaction designers today. At the core of these issues is the believe in the separation between form and interaction. This myth can no longer be maintained - definitely not in education." (David Malouf - Johnny Holland Magazine)

Posted on January 13, 2010 | Permalink

What is Interaction Design History?

"The interesting question is how you separate interaction design history from the broader scope of computing history in general. User experience people gravitate toward the history of hypertext and the graphical user interface, direct manipulation and the mouse, the work done at Xerox PARC and Apple. In many people's minds, that era marks the dividing line between the 'us' of the design community and the 'them' of computer scientists, because it's the point at which it became possible to draw a separation between the work that was done to serve the needs of the machine, and the work that was done solely to meet the needs of the user." (Karen McGrane)

Posted on January 05, 2010 | Permalink

Specifying Behavior: With an Example Menu Behavior Specification

"(...) why do so many software products still violate them? And why do so many applications provide a poor user experience as a result of their not behaving properly? I can think of several possible reasons why some applications don’t behave as they should." (Pabini Gabriel-Petit - UXmatters)

Posted on January 04, 2010 | Permalink

Controls are Choices

"Designing Devices is a series of articles on how and why to create devices, written by me, Dan Saffer, principal designer at Kicker Studio. This is a place for essays that I hope to eventually collect into a book in 2011. Like drafts, the articles will be constantly evolving, hopefully with your feedback." (Dan Saffer - Designing Devices)

Posted on January 01, 2010 | Permalink

Dimensions of design / Against ahistoricity

"The ahistoricity of interaction design – the notion, implicitly held or otherwise, that rich interactivity is an entirely new topic in design for human experience, perhaps with the Doug Engelbart demo as Year Zero – has always driven me nuts. When even an old-school HCI stalwart like Don Norman fails to deliver useful insight, perhaps it’s time to start looking further afield for inspiration." (Adam Greenfield - Speedbird)

Posted on December 14, 2009 | Permalink

A unified approach to visual and interaction design

"Unfortunately, my observation has been that even when all of the right people are involved, more often than not, the various design disciplines opt to compartmentalize the problem. In other words, they divide the project into an interaction design problem, a visual design problem, and an industrial design problem. Each of these problems is then tackled separately, and the resulting individual design solutions get bolted together at the end. It's a Tower of Babel situation, where huge opportunities are lost because the team fails to work together to come up with an innovative product solution and to employ a single, unified design language." (Nate Fortin - Cooper Journal)

Posted on November 17, 2009 | Permalink

Designers vs Developers: Coming together to build the best RIAs

"What is the fastest way to get from a product idea to a rich internet application? By breaking down the communication barriers between designers and developers. This talk takes a quick look at how to build a shared vocabulary and use prototyping to bypass extensive wireframes and development specs." (Theresa Neil - Designing Web Interfaces)

Posted on November 10, 2009 | Permalink

Restoring Spring to iPhone/iPod Touch Springboard

"All of these changes work within the current Springboard metaphor and should not present any insurmountable programming challenges. Certainly vertical scroll is most critical and should be implemented within the next couple of months if sales are not to be further limited. The rest can follow. These changes are also designed so that the new user or disinterested user will enjoy the same Springboard experience as today, while the 'power-buyer' can regain control of their device. Because iPhone/iPod Touch apps, at least at this point, all work one-at-a-time, adding ten or even twenty times as many apps to an iPhone/iPod Touch should have no effect on its reliability, etc. The only effect of these changes will be that both Apple and its developers make a whole bunch more money and that users will be having a whole bunch more fun, making their personal Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that much more beloved and indispensable." (Bruce Tognazinni - AskTog) - courtesy of nicotenhoor

Posted on October 11, 2009 | Permalink

A shorthand for designing UI flows

"Flows are just as important to good interfaces as individual screens are. Customers don’t land on screens from out of nowhere. Specific sequences of actions lead customers through your app as they try to accomplish their tasks." (37signals)

Posted on September 24, 2009 | Permalink

interactions: Looking Broadly to the Future

"This issue explores the future, where traditional boundaries of interaction are broken, creating a view of design as a larger, more culturally embedded, and ultimately more widely dispersed activity. We hope you enjoy the breadth of these efforts as presented in this issue of interactions." (ACM SIGCHI Interactions Magazine)

Posted on September 23, 2009 | Permalink

Why low-fidelity prototyping kicks butt for customer-driven design

"In my discussions with designers, one of the interesting recurring conversations is the tools and process they use to prototype and mock up experiences. In particular, there’s a lot of divergence on how high or low-fidelity to go with a prototype." (Andrew Chen) - courtesy of uxtweets

Posted on September 18, 2009 | Permalink

Vinay Venkatraman on Interaction Design

"Vinay Venkatraman, an interaction designer, is one of a rapidly expanding group of scholars and professionals around the world working to define the way our stuff behaves. Although it's natural for most people to understand the need for interaction with gadgets like software and mobile devices, the field is actually remarkably broad. In an increasingly interactive age, the success of systems, services and even whole corporations and organizations often comes down to an effective interface, created with human behavior in mind." (WorldChanging) - courtesy of puttingpeoplefirst

Posted on September 18, 2009 | Permalink

Designing for Interaction: Design Research

"If only a small bit of the typical time, money, and resources used to make and market a product or service were put towards design research—observing, talking to, and maybe even making artifacts with customers and users—the products and services we use would be greatly improved. Dan Saffer explains." (Dan Saffer - Peachpit) - courtesy jhollandmag

Posted on August 20, 2009 | Permalink

Starting a Design Studio During a Downturn (1-5)

"Kicker Studio has come a long way since our start in September 2008. Although the recession has certainly taken its toll and kept us from doing what we'd planned, it's also helped us do things we hadn't expected. And those things may have helped us grow in important and unexpected ways." (Jennifer Bove - Fast Company)

Posted on July 07, 2009 | Permalink

Designing a Unified Experience: Bringing Interaction, Visual, and Industrial Design Together

"Interaction design, visual design, and industrial design are distinct disciplines for good reason: Each excels in different ways. Interaction designers must be good at imagining structure and flow, which requires strong analytical skills and a high degree of rigor, especially for complex systems. Visual designers and industrial designers are masters of visual and physical usability but are also masters of emotion: They know how to evoke caution, attract attention, and instill desire for a product at first glance. Users have just one experience of a product, though. All three aspects of the design must work in concert, or the product will fail to satisfy. Integration of the three disciplines is a central theme of Kim’s new book, Designing for the Digital Age." (Kim Goodwin - The UX Workshop)

Posted on June 12, 2009 | Permalink

Design With Intent: How designers can influence behavior

"(...) we're experiencing a sea change in the way designers engage with the world. Instead of aspiring to influence user behavior from a distance, we increasingly want the products we design to have more immediate impact through direct social engagement." (Robert Fabricant - design mind) - courtesy of markvanderbeeken

Posted on June 09, 2009 | Permalink

Nice Research on Persona Effectiveness

"The paper compares three groups; one group that is briefed with photos of personas, one which uses illustrations of the personas and the last group is briefed to with no personas, and uses aesthetic design." - (IxDA Discussion) Intensely debated topic (again).

Posted on June 02, 2009 | Permalink

Play in social and tangible interactions

"Many of the interactions seen in tangible and social computing are essentially playful. Play can take on many forms, but they all involve people exploring a conceptual space of possibilities. When designing these 'embodied' interactions, it is therefore helpful to have a good understanding of play - this session aims to do just that. We'll compare the role of interaction designers to that of game designers, who concern themselves primarily with the creation of rule-sets. By using rules, designers have unique opportunities for conveying messages. We'll discuss the emergent behaviour of many social and tangible systems and propose that gardening might be a helpful metaphor. This requires designers to sketch in code and hardware, build prototypes, and observe their use 'in the wild'. Ultimately, we hope to encourage designers to put themselves on equal footing with the people using their systems, so that they can playfully grow meaningful interactions together." - (Kars Alfrink - IxDA Library)

Posted on May 06, 2009 | Permalink

Is Interaction Design a dead-end job?

"(...) interaction design has become pervasive, that anyone and everyone can be an interaction designer, and so the role of professional interaction designer is (or is becoming) unnecessary." - (Tim McCoy - Cooper Journal) courtesy of jjursa

Posted on April 30, 2009 | Permalink

How to integrate interaction, visual and industrial design

"Interaction design, visual design, and industrial design are distinct disciplines for good reason: Each excels in different ways. Interaction designers must be good at imagining structure and flow, which requires strong analytical skills and a high degree of rigor, especially for complex systems. Visual designers and industrial designers are masters of visual and physical usability but are also masters of emotion: They know how to evoke caution, attract attention, and instill desire for a product at first glance. Users have just one experience of a product, though. All three aspects of the design must work in concert, or the product will fail to satisfy. Integration of the three disciplines is a central theme of Kim’s new book, Designing for the Digital Age." - (Kim Goodwin - Cooper Journal)

Posted on April 23, 2009 | Permalink

Move beyond function towards connection

"Most successful products create a sense of connectedness between the consumer and the designer and that this connection occurs when designers balance the pull towards the rational, functional, and expedient with the natural and emotional." - (David Malouf - Johnny Holland)

Posted on April 21, 2009 | Permalink

Designing for Business as Unusual

Presentation at Interaction09 - "John Thackara shows the ways in which business as we know it are about to change for good, and then identifies how interaction designers can take these challenges on as design problems." - (John Thackara)

Posted on April 02, 2009 | Permalink

Attention, Awareness, and Interaction Design 2009

"Here's a talk I gave at Interaction09 in February 2009 in Vancouver. It's mostly for interaction designers, but there’s some good quotes in here for these tough times, too. I hope you enjoy it." - (Dan Saffer - kickerstudio)

Posted on April 01, 2009 | Permalink

Enough UX Chumbaya!

"Interaction Design is NOT Information Architecture. Stop the madness of trying to be everything to everyone!!" - (Dave Malouf) courtesy of jjursa

Posted on March 29, 2009 | Permalink

Demystifying Interaction Design

"If interaction design isn't about influencing behavior... then what exactly are you doing?" - (Joshua Porter - Bokardo)

Posted on March 26, 2009 | Permalink

Behavior is our Medium

"Robert Fabricant talks about Interaction Design as a practice beyond just computing technology. He gives examples of Interaction Design as far back as ancient history, all the way to a humanitarian project underway today. He shows that Interaction Design's primary medium is behavior, extending far past the high technology world into the realm of human behavior and relationships." - (IxDA Library)

Posted on March 19, 2009 | Permalink

Similarities Between Interaction Designers and Agile Programmers

Alan Cooper video - "During the Agile 2008 conference, Amr Elssamadisy interviewed Alan Cooper. During their conversation, Alan provides additional context for his talk, 'The Wisdom of Experience' and explains why he believes the adoption of Agile methods by developers is a positive development for interaction designers." - (Cooper Journal)

Posted on March 13, 2009 | Permalink

Stage Directions Meet Functional Specifications: They Have a Lot in Common

"When it comes to modern theater, stage directions—the descriptive text that appears within brackets in a script—are an important piece of the puzzle. They speak for the playwright when he is not there. They provide details about how the playwright has imagined the environment and atmosphere. They describe critical physical aspects of the characters and settings. Stage directions can also be critical in dictating the intended tempo and rhythm of the piece. Whether they establish a production’s overall tone or elucidate particular actions of characters, stage directions help tell the complete story that is in the playwright’s mind. Stage directions accomplish all of this, using a simple convention that structurally separates them from the actual story." - (Traci Lepore - UXmatters)

Posted on March 10, 2009 | Permalink

Industry trends in prototyping

"In the world of designing interactive products and services, prototype is generally defined as some representation of a design idea. In the world of physical products, the term tends to connote something quite similar to the finished manufactured form. Indeed, industrial designers use the term model to describe what interaction designers think of as a prototype." - (Dave Cronin - Adobe Dev Connection) courtesy of janjursa

Posted on March 02, 2009 | Permalink

Interaction 09: All posts in one place

"From opening parties to closing remarks, Core is all over IxDA's latest gathering in Vancouver." - (Carl Alviani - Core77)

Posted on February 12, 2009 | Permalink

Each One, Teach One

Kim Goodwin's IxDA '09 keynote - "(...) it discusses the future direction of interaction design as a profession. We've seen demand for our services increase dramatically over the past few years, and, in order to continue to respond to this demand, we need to make more of us. Part of the solution involves creating academic programs to provide the foundation for learning the craft of interaction design; another part is to create a culture of mentorship. This means that all of us need to learn to teach what we do." - (Cooper Journal)

Posted on February 12, 2009 | Permalink

Apple's Flatland Aesthetic I: How a Simple Idea is Causing Complexity

"Apple needs to take a fresh look at all of their products across the board, specifically looking for where old decisions favoring new users are now dragging those same users down. Of course it's a good idea to avoid complexity, including hierarchies, where possible, but some tasks are inherently complex. Go for visual and behavioral simplicity where it works, but be prepared to back off." - (Bruce Tognazzini) courtesy of johngruber

Posted on February 10, 2009 | Permalink

Carpe Diem

Slides from the keynote address to Interaction09 by Dan Saffer. - (KickIt)

Posted on February 09, 2009 | Permalink

Live at Interaction09: Day 1-4

"Today one of the best UX events in the world started; interaction09 in Vancouver. For four days more than 400 interaction designers huddle together in order to get inspired on the field of interaction design. Of course we sacrificed ourselves and traveled to Vancouver just to give you a 'live' report. For the next four days you can read our thoughts and observations." - (Jeroen van Geel - Johnny Holland)

Posted on February 06, 2009 | Permalink

Beyond the touch screen

"Since Apple's introduction of the iPhone, it seems like everyone is excited at the possibility of implementing a touch screen, and why not? There are a lot of benefits to touch-screen interfaces: Extreme flexibility in visual and interaction design allows products and applications to be tailored for specific needs and audiences to target markets; less reliance on hardware controls means significant savings in mechanical cost; larger screens allow more opportunities for richness in states and animations; greater flexibility also means the possibility to reduce waste in the creation of longer-lasting devices with upgradable OS's and software." (Michael Voege - Cooper Journal)

Posted on February 04, 2009 | Permalink

Pattern Languages for Interaction Design

"Will Evans stalked and captured Erin Malone, Christian Crumlish, and Lucas Pettinati to talk about design patterns, pattern libraries, styleguides, and innovation. Erin, Christian, and Lucas are leading a workshop on design patterns at this year's Interactions in Vancouver and, Erin and Christian are writing a book on patterns for designing social spaces for O'Reilly." (Will Evans - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on January 27, 2009 | Permalink

Introduction to Interaction Design

An Interview with Dave Malouf - "interaction design is about deciding the flows and conversation, the narrative that these interface points make up - the notes that are played by the musician." (Will Evans - Johnny Holland)

Posted on January 19, 2009 | Permalink

Tap is the New Click (The Video)

Video registration - "Even though the technology has been around for decades, only now are we starting to see mass production and adoption of touchscreen and gestural devices for the public. Jeff Han's influential 2006 TED demonstration of his multitouch system, followed by the launches of Nintendo's Wii, Apple's iPhone, and Microsoft Surface, have announced a new era of interaction design, one where gestures in space and touches on a screen will be as prominent as pointing and clicking. But how do you create products for this new paradigm? While most of us know how to design desktop and web applications, what do you need to know to design for interactive gestures? This introduction to designing gestural interfaces will cover the basics: usability and ergonomics; a brief history of the technology; some elemental patterns of use; prototyping and documenting; and how to communicate that a gestural interface is present to users." (Dan Saffer)

Posted on January 09, 2009 | Permalink

An Interview with Anders Ramsay: Prototyping

"You prototype as much as you have to." (Smart Pill Videos)

Posted on December 23, 2008 | Permalink

The Semantic Turn: A New Foundation for Design

By Klaus Krippendorff (2006) - "It is difficult to summarize this book or give it proper treatment. But, it should be known that this will probably become one of the founding writing's in the field of interaction design. A must-read for practitioners." (Christian Beck)

Posted on November 12, 2008 | Permalink

Tap is the New Click (Presentation)

"I had awesome crowds yesterday at my two 'Tap is the New Click' presentations. Lots of great discussion and people laughed at my jokes to boot! Here is a pdf version of the presentation slides (8mb) for your downloading pleasure! The first chapter of the upcoming Designing Gestural Interfaces book can also be downloaded for your reading pleasure." (Dan Saffer - Kicker Studio)

Posted on September 19, 2008 | Permalink

Cultural Aspects of Interaction Design

"When a group of people, no matter its scale, start sharing common ways of thinking, feeling and living, culture emerges. Culture therefore can emerge from any population segment. It is not limited to a geographic area or ethnicity. Different cultures can be distinguished by their individual and group characteristics, e.g. the mental models, behavioral patterns, emotional responses, aesthetics, rules, norms, and values that group members share. Different cultures therefore produce different artifacts and environments based on their cultural characteristics. On the other hand, artifacts, through people’s interactions with them, influence cultures and can even produce a new culture." (Keiichi Sato and Kuohsiang Chen - Special Issue of Int.'l Journal of Design)

Posted on September 15, 2008 | Permalink

Dan Saffer Leaves AP

"I plan on relishing my remaining time here at Adaptive Path, even though I know with a pang in my heart the end is coming, and soon. I've worked here longer than any place I’ve ever worked. Here, I learned everything I know about running a design consultancy, and, truthfully, a lot of what I know about being a designer in general. It was here I sharpened my interaction design and product strategy skills, as well as honing my speaking and writing chops." (Dan Saffer - Adaptive Path Blog)

Posted on September 04, 2008 | Permalink

More Than Useful

"The presentation was framed by a slightly philosophical look at how certain games subliminally activate cognitive processes and could thus be used to allow for new insights. I used Breakout and Portal as examples of this. I am convinced there is an emerging field of playful products that interaction designers should get involved with." (Kars Alfrink - Leapfrog)

Posted on June 25, 2008 | Permalink

Five things I believe about the aesthetics of interaction design 

"In interaction design, we are not doing visual art. The user's aesthetic experience lies in the interaction, the way in which the system behaves and responds over time in interplay with the user. To put it simply, when we talk about aesthetics we need to talk about look and feel, not merely about look." (Jonas Löwgren)

Posted on June 24, 2008 | Permalink

Shades of Use: The Dynamics of Interaction Design for Sociable Use

"Computers are used in sociable situations, for example during customer meetings. This is seldom recognized in design, which means that computers often become a hindrance in the meeting. Based on empirical studies and socio-cultural theory, this thesis provides perspectives on sociable use and identifies appropriate units of analysis that serve as critical tools for understanding and solving interaction design problems." (Mattias Arvola PhD thesis 2005)

Posted on June 12, 2008 | Permalink

Interaction Design

"Interaction Design refers to the shaping of interactive products and services with a specific focus on their use." (Jonas Lowgren - IxD.org) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on June 12, 2008 | Permalink

Urban procedural rhetorics

"This is a transcript of my presentation at The Web and Beyond 2008: Mobility in Amsterdam on 22 May. Since the majority of paying attendees were local I presented in Dutch. However, English appears to be the lingua franca of the internet, so here I offer a translation. I have uploaded the slides to SlideShare and hope to be able to share a video recording of the whole thing soon." (Kars Alfrink - Leapfrog)

Posted on May 28, 2008 | Permalink

Thoughts on Interaction Design (download)

"Interaction designers are the shapers of behavior. Behavior is a large idea, and may, at first blush, seem too large to warrant a single profession. But a profession has emerged nonetheless. This professional category includes the complexity of information architecture, the anthropologic desire to understand humanity, the altruistic nature of usability engineering, and the creation of dialogue. These topics are discussed in the four sections of this text. Download 'Thoughts on Interaction Design' as a single .pdf file suitable for on-screen reading (2,520k)" (Jon Kolko et al.)

Posted on May 14, 2008 | Permalink

Bill Morggridge's keynote presentation

"Bill Morggridge delivered a really cool talk during the Service Design Symposium, hosted by the CIID. It’s really interesting the way he explains how design has evolved over time. Just after graduation, back in the 60’s, he thought he would spend his whole life designing kettles and washing machines. But as technology evolved, and life became more complex, he realised that designers needed to design the systems that actually surround a product. For example, how to make a train journey more delightful? Designers need to not only worry about making a comfy seat, they actually need to think about the whole customer journey, and how systems, processes, people impact a customer’s experience. Welcome to the amazing world of service design!" (Erick Mohr - intuire)

Posted on May 05, 2008 | Permalink

User Experience Factor 1: State Glue

"I finally got myself an iPhone, ... and it is reeeaaally nice! Perhaps not the best phone on the market but using it is a real joy. One of the great things about it is that the interaction feels so smooth and sweet. It made me wonder what makes it so nice. One of the things I want to show you in this article is how this actually works in practice and what makes it such a good user experience." (Martijn van Welie - Thoughts on Interaction Design)

Posted on May 05, 2008 | Permalink

The Nature of Design Practice and Implications for Interaction Design Research

"The focus of this paper is interaction design research aimed at supporting interaction design practice. The main argument is that this kind of interaction design research has not (always) been successful, and that the reason for this is that it has not been guided by a sufficient understanding of the nature of design practice. Based on a comparison between the notion of complexity in science and in design, it is argued that science is not the best place to look for approaches and methods on how to approach design complexity. Instead, the case is made that any attempt by interaction design research to produce outcomes aimed at supporting design practice must be grounded in a fundamental understanding of the nature of design practice. Such an understanding can be developed into a well-grounded and rich set of rigorous and disciplined design methods and techniques, appropriate to the needs and desires of practicing designers." (Erik Stolterman - International Journal of Design) - courtesy of markvanderbeeken

Posted on May 02, 2008 | Permalink

The Interaction Museum

"(...) an on-line resource aimed at HCI practitioners, teachers and researchers that will collect a wide variety of interaction techniques and systems and make them available to the HCI community." (About The iMuseum)

Posted on April 16, 2008 | Permalink

Inspiration From The Edge

IA Summit presentation by Stephen Anderson - "I've often believed that the best designers don't get their ideas and inspiration from the place they work. As a designer that works in the social web space, I do look at a large number of new sites that come through the pipeline for inspiration. However, I also am a big advocate of experimenting with things that are seemingly unrelated and trying to connect those experiences to my work on the web." (kev/null)

Posted on April 16, 2008 | Permalink

Gregorian Date Input Diversity

"One of the most common interaction patterns one can find on forms is the date input group. They appear in all shapes and sizes in various applications and sign up forms on websites. Certain forms of appearance seem to be more popular in certain geographical areas than other. But other than that it is hard to find any pattern or rationale why one website has chosen for model X while the other has chosen model Y. The suspicion would rise that the date input method is often dictated by the way the backend would 'like' it. This is a situation which neither we, as interaction designers and consultants, nor the end user should settle for." (Cornelis Govert Adriaan Kolbach - cornae.org)

Posted on March 19, 2008 | Permalink

Design Research Lies!

"The talk I gave last fall at the Institute of Design's 2007 Design Research conference is now available as a video! It's probably one of the funniest (and most fun) talks I've ever given. Enjoy!" (Dan Saffer - Adaptive Path)

Posted on February 04, 2008 | Permalink

Documenting the Design of Rich Internet Applications

"Ajax and Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) have revolutionized the way users interact with Web sites. However, documenting the design of any page that uses Ajax is a challenge, because the page - and, more importantly, components on the page - can have different states, depending on how users interact with the page's components." (Richard F. Cecil - UXmatters)

Posted on December 19, 2007 | Permalink

Interaction 08 Program Announced

"Our exciting line-up includes industry legends as well as up and coming stars for a well-rounded, engaging two days of inspiration and learning." - (Interaction Design Association)

Posted on October 31, 2007 | Permalink

Design engineering: The next step (1/2)

"The solution is elegantly simple in concept, if arduously difficult in implementation." (Alan Cooper - Cooper Journal of Design)

Posted on October 19, 2007 | Permalink

Intuition, pleasure, and gestures

"I wondered for a long time whether I was right to suspect that using gestural input like on my trackpad really would appeal to most people, or whether it just reflected an eccentricity of mine." (Jonathan Korman - Cooper Journal of Design)

Posted on October 19, 2007 | Permalink

Success Stories

"Designing Interactions gives access to a very detailed and adept summarized history of commercial interaction design. It’s an invaluable resource to anyone who wants to know what happened to get us to this point, especially with the computer interfaces. But, again, it does beg the question to be answered, 'Why did these few people have such an effect, something that more designers producing more varying designs could have had?'” (Clifton Evans - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on August 30, 2007 | Permalink

A Call to Arms for Interaction Designers

"Now that the Wii and iPhone have introduced more physical interactions to the public at large, it's time to step up and start making an effort to define and document a common set of movements and motions that could be used for initiating actions across a variety of platforms." (Dan Saffer - Adaptive Path)

Posted on August 29, 2007 | Permalink

Foundations of Interaction Design

"It's also important to note that Interaction Design is distinct from the other design disciplines. It's not Information Architecture, Industrial Design or even User Experience Design. It also isn't user interface design. Interaction design is not about form or even structure, but is more ephemeral - about why and when rather than about what and how." (David Malouf - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on August 23, 2007 | Permalink

What Puts the Design in Interaction Design

"Interaction design is a blended endeavor of process, methodology, and attitude. Discussions of process and methodology are pervasive in the interaction design milieu and often revolve around a perceived tension between process and methodology and the role of design within this discipline. To be clear, process is the overarching design framework—for example, an iterative, or spiral, process or a sequential, or waterfall, process. Conversely, a methodology is a prescribed design approach such as user-centered design or genius design." (Kevin Silver - UXmatters)

Posted on July 12, 2007 | Permalink

IxDA Community Site (beta)

"With great excitement, the IxDA Board of Directors announces the availability of the beta version of a new IxDA community experience. Through the efforts of IxDA volunteers, and spearheaded by community member Jeff Howard, we are pleased to launch the beta version. We believe this effort is the start of creating a new kind of professional organization. The new site will allow a significantly better experience for all of us in the community, including tagging of content, customized RSS feeds, browsing by topics and the ability to share information about you with the community." (Interaction Design Association) - courtesy of joannesvandermeulen

Posted on May 29, 2007 | Permalink

About Face 3: Foreword

"Interaction design is a tool for 'Knowing what the user wants.' Armed with that knowledge, you can create better, more successful, bit-empowered products, and you can sell them for more money." (Alan Cooper)

Posted on May 18, 2007 | Permalink

Acting with Technology: Activity Theory and Interaction Design

"Interaction design is a broad term inflected in different ways in different communities. To us, interaction design comprises all efforts to understand human engagement with digital technology and all efforts to use that knowledge to design more useful and pleasing artifacts. Within this arena, the main audiences for this book are those who conduct work in the fields of human–computer interaction, computer–supported collaborative work, computer–supported collaborative learning, digital design, cognitive ergonomics, informatics, information systems, and human factors." (Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie Nardi - First Monday 12.4)

Posted on April 15, 2007 | Permalink

Interaction Design Style

"It's been a little less than a week since my IA Summit presentation. To my great surprise, it went really well. In the next day or so I will be posting a summary of my experiences preparing and discussing my topic, which was, in a word, style. Many people came to me after my presentation asking me not only to post the slides themselves, but also to post the reading list since I did discuss a lot of books and sites that deeply influenced my thinking. So here's all the stuff: (...)" (Christopher Fahey - graphpaper.com)

Posted on April 04, 2007 | Permalink

Thoughts on Interaction Design

"It is the primary goal of this text to better define Interaction Design: to provide a definition that encompasses the intellectual facets of the field, the conceptual underpinnings of Interaction Design as a legitimate human-centered profession, and the particular methods used by practitioners in their day to day experiences" (Jon Kolko et al.)

Posted on April 02, 2007 | Permalink

Learning Interaction Design from Las Vegas

"My SXSW 2007 presentation. People seemed to like it. Sam Felder's transcription of the talk. Podcast supposedly coming from SXSW eventually." (Dan Saffer - odannyboy)

Posted on March 26, 2007 | Permalink

By any medium necessary: How interaction designers can save the world

"The job of interaction designers is to provide pleasure and power to people through the design of products, services, tools, and processes that satisfy their goals. With the discipline of interaction design still in its infancy, some people believe the medium in which we work is pixels. But this is manifestly untrue." (David Fore - Cooper Newsletter)

Posted on March 09, 2007 | Permalink

Selection-Dependent Inputs

"As arbitrators of checkout, registration, and data entry, forms are often the linchpins of successful Web applications. But successful Web applications tend to grow—both in terms of capability and complexity. And this increasing complexity is often passed on to and absorbed by a Web application’s forms. In addition to needing more input fields, labels, and Help text, forms with a growing number of options may also require selection-dependent inputs." (Luke Wroblewski - UXmatters)

Posted on February 21, 2007 | Permalink

Documenting Interaction Design: Wire Frames with Visio and Word

"There are many ways to document an interaction design and the level of details needed is dependent on what your documenting and for what purpose. There has also been a lot of discussions on what the best tool for creating interaction designs and/or prototypes is (...). The tool you choose is of course also dependent on what you are documenting and for what purpose. It is also much of a personal taste what tool one prefers to work with." (interakt.nu) - courtesy of Anders Björk

Posted on January 05, 2007 | Permalink

Improving User Workflows with Single-Page User Interfaces

"Over the last two years, Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) have been a hot topic of discussion. While the sheen has already begun to wear off the buzzword Ajax a bit among Web application designers, RIAs are bigger than ever with our clients and their customers. Everyone seems to love slider-based filtering, drag and drop, fisheye menus, and auto-completion for input fields. Web application designs that include none of these typical Ajax features are not well received. Sometimes, one gets the feeling that Web developers implement richness just for the sake of making a Web site and the company that commissions it look cool. Obviously, user experience design should be about a lot more than creating cool controls." (Joost Willemsen - UXmatters)

Posted on November 21, 2006 | Permalink

David Malouf and Bill Scott on AJAX

UI 11 conference notes - "What's all the fuss about Web 2.0? Marketing buzz, but really nothing new: All existed separately." (Jesper Rønn-Jensen - justaddwater)

Posted on October 25, 2006 | Permalink

Designing Interactions: The Book

"Bill Moggridge introduces us to forty influential designers who have shaped our interaction with technology. The early chapters are mostly about invention of precedent setting designs, forming a living history. The center section is structured around topics, so that you can find several opinions collected together for comparison, about designing in a particular context. The later chapters move more towards the future, with trends, possibilities and conjectures. The introduction and final chapter combine to describe the approach to designing interactions that has evolved at IDEO. The book is illustrated with more than 700 images, with color throughout." (Bill Moggridge) - courtesy of puttingpeoplefirst

Posted on October 06, 2006 | Permalink

Book Review: Designing for Interaction

"Dan Saffer's Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices was an ambitious undertaking. In fewer than 300 pages, he has attempted to cover the history, current practice, and notions about the future of the rapidly evolving discipline of interaction design (IxD). Whether you are simply curious about interaction design, are entering the profession yourself, or are collaborating with an interaction designer, Designing for Interaction is a good place to start your journey down the road of interaction design." (Leo Frishberg - UXmatters)

Posted on September 11, 2006 | Permalink

Designing for Interaction

"Designing for Interaction is informed, intelligent, and inspiring. Dan Saffer delivers practical advice on today's interaction design challenges, and smart insights on tomorrow's. - says Jesse James Garrett" (Dan Saffer)

Posted on July 27, 2006 | Permalink

Frontiers of Interaction II

Presentations by Christian Peters, Pabini Gabriel-Petit, Matteo Penzo, and Fabio Sergio. - (idearium)

Posted on July 12, 2006 | Permalink

Architecture and interaction design, via adaptation and hackability

"(...) drawing selectively from the riches of thousands of years of architectural development, both professional and vernacular, can only be a good thing in such a nascent field as interaction design." (Dan Hill - cityofsound)

Posted on May 25, 2006 | Permalink

Interaction Design (IxD) Symposium

"The IxD Symposium - an all-day pre-conference seminar - was presented by Dave Heller, Kim Goodwin, Luke Wroblewski, and Frank Ramirez of IxDA (Interaction Design Association). It was well worth the additional cost as each presenter gave practical advice based on real projects." (Russell Wilson - UXmatters)

Posted on April 15, 2006 | Permalink

Interaction Modeling: User State-Trace Analysis

"This article presents a three-part method of interaction modeling where: (1) A prescriptive, preferred interaction model (PIM) is created; (2) A descriptive user-interaction model (UIM) derived from an actual user study session is created; (3) A model of problem solving and decision making (PDM) is used to interpret disparities between the first two models." (Matt Queen - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on February 13, 2006 | Permalink

Content is King No More: Web 2.0 is About Interaction

"(...) the thing that is most glaring and poignant to me is the seismic shift in importance from a focus on content and information to behavior and interaction." (Dirk Knemeyer) - Like interacting with other humans, a combination of structure ('parts and wholes'), content ('thoughts'), and form ('behaviour') is what makes a digital environment 'tick'.

Posted on October 07, 2005 | Permalink

The Web, Information Architecture, and Interaction Design

"So when thinking about a new Web site, first ask what kind of problem you have, to make sure that you bring the right people - and the right tools - for the job." (Jonathan Korman - Cooper Newsletter)

Posted on September 29, 2005 | Permalink

IxDG Resource Library

"The IxDG Resource Library is an annotated collection of content on all aspects of interaction design. The items in the library are organized (...)" (Interaction Design Group)

Posted on May 17, 2005 | Permalink

The Role of Metaphor in Interaction Design

"In this paper, I will explore how designers can use metaphors in their work: first in the process of interaction design and secondly within interactive products." - (Dan Shaffer) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on May 12, 2005 | Permalink

Web Application Continuums

"Many Web Application technologies are an attempt to bridge the gap between Thin (browser-based) and Thick (desktop-based) clients. As a result, it's useful to consider where they fall on a continuum between these two deployment and design options." (Luke Wroblewski - Functioning Form)

Posted on April 18, 2005 | Permalink

Designing Intersection Flows

"Avoiding problems with forms where users have to choose between alternative ways to proceed. When forms give users the option to continue in two or more alternative directions, such as registering as a new customer or signing in as a returning one, unfortunate users will take the wrong turn if it isn't unmistakably obvious which way they should go. In this article, we'll take a look at a few intersection flows that have caused users problems." (Henrik Olsen - GUUUI) - courtesy of webword

Posted on April 06, 2005 | Permalink

Interaction Design Encyclopedia

"If you feel something is missing, please suggest a term or contribute to the encyclopedia. You can get notified when additions are made to the encyclopedia! You may also track changes in the Encyclopedia using the RSS News Feed Service. There are currently 30 entries in the encyclopedia (86 under preparation)." (Mads Soegaard) - courtesy of guuui

Posted on March 31, 2005 | Permalink

Towards a Toolkit for Interaction Design

"I begin with a definition, and illustrate my approach to partitioning the terrain of interaction design using five conceptual 'lenses'. In so doing, I cover most of what I see as the theoretical roots of interaction design. I then turn to the role of theory in interaction design, and suggest that a good way to begin is to assemble a toolkit of concepts for interaction design that consists of appropriately sized theoretical constructs." (Tom Erickson) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on March 17, 2005 | Permalink

Modeling User Workflows for Rich Internet Applications

"As Rich Internet Applications become more advanced, the tasks, problems, and processes they address become increasingly complex, making it more important than ever to accurately model user workflows. Early Internet applications were often narrowly focused in scope, and the steps were relatively simple and sequential, for example, purchasing items through simple e-commerce, reserving hotel rooms, or renting cars. But as productivity applications move toward a web-based distribution model, the tasks become more complicated." (David Hogue - Macromedia) - courtesy of jane wells

Posted on January 27, 2005 | Permalink

Interaction Design Meets Agility: Handouts and Presentation

"Handouts and Powerpoint presentation for tutorial presented at UPA 2004." (Abstractics) - courtesy of mark felcan smith

Posted on October 15, 2004 | Permalink

The Worst Interface Ever

"Never, ever, ever let systems-level engineers do human interaction design unless they have displayed a proven secondary talent in that area." (Bruce 'Tog' Tognazzini) - courtesy of chris mcevoy

Posted on September 24, 2004 | Permalink

Interaction Design Group

"The Interaction Design Group (IxDG) is an international community of people who are practicing, teaching, and studying interaction design." (About IxDG) - courtesy of nick finck

Posted on August 03, 2004 | Permalink

A Definition of Interaction Design

"Interaction design is the art of facilitating or instigating interactions between humans (or their agents), mediated by products." (Dan Saffer) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on July 22, 2004 | Permalink

Well-designed products

"Interaction designers are famous for complaining about products that are poorly designed, and wishing they had the opportunity to redesign them. In this article, Dave Cronin reminds us that there are many well-designed products out there, too. He offers a selection of products you can use today that do a good job of meeting Dave's criteria for 'good' design." (Dave Cronin - Cooper)

Posted on July 22, 2004 | Permalink

Thinking About Interaction Design for Online News Delivery

"Online journalism needs better design for active readers rather than passive consumers. The author's research indicates that Web content can be made far more meaningful and useful through better use of interactivity, or 'productive interaction'." (Online Journalism Review) - courtesy of lucdesk

Posted on July 01, 2004 | Permalink

Interaction Design and Children Conference

A conversation with Alan Kay, Marvin Minsky, Seymour Papert and Allison Druin - "We are behaving like a society that had just invented writing and let each child have a pencil for an hour a day." (Washington Post)

Posted on June 07, 2004 | Permalink

Designing products for offshore development

"One of the most significant realities about offshore developers is that they will build exactly what you tell them to build. This is both good and bad news." (Dave Cronin - Cooper Newsletter)

Posted on May 16, 2004 | Permalink

Progressive Disclosure: The best interaction design technique?

"Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique that sequences information and actions across several screens in order to reduce feelings of overwhelm for the user." (Frank Spiller - Demystifying Usability) - courtesy of design by fire

Posted on April 18, 2004 | Permalink

Use Cases and interaction design

"Use cases are widely used in large projects to capture the functional requirements of software systems. In the hands of interaction designers, use cases can serve as a powerful tool for brainstorming workflows and bridging the gaps between design and development." (Henrik Olsen - guuui)

Posted on April 01, 2004 | Permalink

Technical writers and interaction design

"Technical writers are oft-forgotten constituents in the product development cycle. Although they are rarely tasked with participating in product requirements definition and product design, technical writers are in a unique position to affect product design. However, they will find that subtlety and subterfuge are sometimes necessary to make a politically correct impact in an organization that has not embraced interaction design as a formal part of the development process." (Steve Calde - Cooper)

Posted on March 25, 2004 | Permalink

Interactivity and MultiMedia Interfaces

"Multimedia technology offers instructional designers an unprecedented opportunity to create richly interactive learning environments. With greater design freedom comes complexity. The standard answer to the problems of too much choice, disorientation, and complex navigation is thought to lie in the way we design the interactivity in a system." (David Kirsh)

Posted on February 19, 2004 | Permalink

Top 10 Reasons to Not Shop On Line

"Responsibility for many e-commerce problems lies with designers. Responsibility for others lies with engineers, marketers, managers, and executives who are willing to accept mediocrity or worse." (Bruce Tognazzini - AskTog) - courtesy of lawrence lee

Posted on February 10, 2004 | Permalink

Panther: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

"It may seem I'm damning Apple with faint praise, considering how much bad I have mentioned. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Apple is indeed back. OS X is a fully-usable powerhouse once more, with a free and open future. I'm giving Apple some free advice, from someone whose advice is normally screamingly expensive, on where to go from here. The way is open." (Bruce 'Tog' Tognazzini - AskTog)

Posted on January 13, 2004 | Permalink

When good design => bad product

"When you come up with improved designs, take it upon yourself to test how they work. Formulate your own test plan and try them out under a variety of conditions. If the engineering process is so badly broken that changing the old designs will almost certainly make things worse, back off on how much you want to change in each release and work with your engineers to do more informal QA testing before the release is assembled." (Bruce Tognazzini - AskTog) - courtesy of vanderwal

Posted on December 03, 2003 | Permalink

The Hub: Intersections of interaction design

"(...) a blog and resource site created by the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea to explore interaction design. Interaction design takes place at the connection of technology and personal interaction with products, environments, spaces, platforms, services, social networks. The Hub offers a place for discussion and reflection about the state of interaction design today." (Interaction Design Institute Ivrea)

Posted on November 13, 2003 | Permalink

HITS 2003 Presentation Slides

"Interaction design is, now more than ever, a critical resource for business strategy. A growing gap exists between companies' increasing knowledge of technology and taking products to market, and their decreasing understanding of people's everyday needs and wants for interaction with media, services and physical products, all of which are increasingly embedded with digital interactive technology." (HITS 2003)

Posted on October 23, 2003 | Permalink

Balancing Visual and Structural Complexity in Interaction Design

"By reducing visual complexity at the cost of structural simplicity, you will give your users a hard time understanding and navigating the content of a web site." (Henrik Olsen - guuui)

Posted on October 01, 2003 | Permalink

Going with the Flow: Interaction Design for Healthcare

"Focusing on the motivations and goals behind the behaviors in the workflows keep designers from getting bogged down in the complexity of the problem, paving the way for the delivery of solutions that enable practitioners to deliver the best care possible." (Cooper Newsletter)

Posted on September 27, 2003 | Permalink

PoInter: Patterns of Interaction

"The project is concerned with investigating the appropriateness of patterns as a means of communicating information about how people interact with each other through and around technology. Ultimately, this is with a view to informing the design process for computer systems to support the work and activities that the people are engaged in (...)" (Cooperative Systems Engineering Group) - courtesy of todd r. warfel

Posted on September 11, 2003 | Permalink

Interaction Designers

"We're here to create a home for interaction designers -- what type of home that will be, we do not yet know. Whether we find or build our home, though, it must address the issues and challenges that the many hundreds of us face in our jobs." (Challis Hodge et al.) - courtesy of xblog

Posted on September 09, 2003 | Permalink

Strike A Balance: Users' Expertise on Interface Design

"Computers and users process information in distinct ways -- so do individual users. Although it's relatively easy to get a computer to understand input, what with fixed standards and universal APIs, usability with human users is not absolute. User interface usability is relative to the experience level of individual users. UI designer Mike Padilla provides an overview of UI design for Web-based productivity software with a focus on the broadest range of users, examining what makes an application UI usable and detailing concepts that can facilitate an efficient, broad-based UI design." (Mike Padilla - IBM developerWorks) - courtesy of webword

Posted on September 04, 2003 | Permalink

Interactive Narratives

"Interactive narratives are informational and storytelling experiences designed and produced for the web. They leverage great design, visual journalism and rich-media content." (About Interactive Narratives) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on September 04, 2003 | Permalink

Controlling Interaction

"Interaction is a key element in learning and acquiring information. It is intrinsically dependent on time and on control. (...) By using judiciously time and control is how the majority of the best interaction systems have been built. This is an important aspect of any system since, in most cases, interaction is the key to productivity." (Juan C. Dürsteler - Inf@Vis!)

Posted on September 01, 2003 | Permalink

Interaction and Time

"Interaction is a key element in learning and acquiring information. Interaction is intrinsically dependent on time and on control. In this issue we consider the importance of the first one." (Juan C. Dürsteler - Inf@Vis!)

Posted on July 29, 2003 | Permalink

Loop: AIGA Journal of Interaction Design Education

Issue June 2003 - Number 7: 2003 Annual of Student Projects (AIGA)

Posted on July 25, 2003 | Permalink

The Seven Virtues of the Interaction Designer

"Interaction design is the design of things and systems, typically combining computing and telecommunications, to allow a relatively inexpert user to interact efficiently, transparently and pleasurably with the technology." (Gilliam Crampton Smith - Interaction Design Institute Ivrea) - courtesy of antenna

Posted on July 10, 2003 | Permalink

Danny Boy

"I'm currently persuing a Master's degree in Interaction Design at Carnegie Mellon University. This blog is an attempt to document some of that experience." - (Dan Saffer)

Posted on June 01, 2003 | Permalink

5 Ways to Get the Most from In-House Designers

"Over the last two years, we've heard from increasing numbers of executives who want to bring interaction design in-house because they've realized how critical it is to product success. There are plenty of challenges involved in doing this, including hiring and training the right people. One of the challenges companies may not expect, though, is in deciding how to use those resources once they've been found." - (Kim Goodwin - Cooper Newsletter)

Posted on June 01, 2003 | Permalink

Notes for Job Seekers in UI Design and Computer Science

"Job Searching takes time. Many of the things that need to happen to land a job are out of your control. This means that you might be doing everything right, and still not have any offers. Plan for this. Make sure you invest time in learning new skills, staying sharp with your old ones, and getting more experence regardless of whether you're paid or not. The world needs better designs for just about everything, so the long term future for you is bright - hang in there." (Scott Berkun - UIWeb.com)

Posted on May 09, 2003 | Permalink

Branding & the User Interface - Part 1: Brand Basics

"What is brand? More than just a corporate logo, 'brand' is that tangible - and intangible - something that makes your product jump off the shelf and keep consumers and customers coming back for more. This article is the first in a series that describes concrete aspects of branding, sheds light on how interaction design and brand are related, and provides a primer for talking about the religion that is brand." (Nate Fortin - Cooper)

Posted on April 15, 2003 | Permalink

Interaction Design History in a Teeny Little Nutshell

"Before computers there wasn't 'Interaction Design'. But most of the qualities we seek have been valued through the ages." (Marc Rettig) - courtesy of fabio serge

Posted on April 01, 2003 | Permalink

Broadband Meets Broadcast at AIGA Group

"The London AIGA Experience Design forum recently hosted Jennifer Whitney of the Boston-based television producer WGBH to hear about their interaction design challenges." (Michael Andrews - Usability News)

Posted on February 25, 2003 | Permalink

Multimodality: The Next Wave of Mobile Interaction

"Multimodality is new technology that hopes to enhance the mobile user experience by enabling network operators to combine speech, touch and onscreen displays for intuitive and powerful mobile applications." (James Colby - Speech Technology Magazine) - courtesy of nooface

Posted on January 01, 2003 | Permalink

Introducing Interaction Design

"(...) the first of a twelve-article, twelve-month series devoted to the field of interaction design." (Bob Baxley - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on November 12, 2002 | Permalink

A Quiz Designed to Give You Fitts

"So you think you are an interaction designer? Not if you cannot answer all the following questions quickly and with authority." (Bruce Tognazzini - AskTog)

Posted on September 24, 2002 | Permalink

Interaction Design and Agile Methods

"(...) design-intensive approaches have at least paid lip service to the idea that users -- to the extent it was feasible to inject them into the design process -- could improve the outcome." (Jon Udell - O'Reilly Network)

Posted on September 04, 2002 | Permalink

The New Rationalism

"Moggridge noted that the aesthetics recede as behaviour becomes more important - that behaviour is the aspect people actually engage with." (Dan Hill - cityofsound/blog)

Posted on September 01, 2002 | Permalink

Extreme & Radical User Interfaces: Exploring New Interaction Paradigms

"The world of computer-based interaction is changing again." (NPUC 2002 - IBM Research)

Posted on August 01, 2002 | Permalink

User Interface, User Experience -- Where's It Going?

"Maybe the best user interface is none at all (...)" (Dan Gillmor - Sillicon Valley News)

Posted on August 01, 2002 | Permalink

Stanford University Interactivity Lab

"Our goal is to develop new devices, techniques, and theories that support the design of fluent interaction in a ubiquitous computing environment." (Stanford Computer Science Department)

Posted on August 01, 2002 | Permalink

Thackara's Law

"Smart Tech + Pointless Product = Stupid Product" (John Thackara - Interaction Design Institute Ivrea)

Posted on July 16, 2002 | Permalink

Managing the Ecology of Interaction

"Many studies and many areas in HCI and CSCW emphasise the rich ecological setting of human-computer interaction (...)" (Alan Dix)

Posted on July 04, 2002 | Permalink

Extending Motion Into Interactivity

A curriculum for interaction design (Ron Saito - LOOP 2002.5)

Posted on June 19, 2002 | Permalink

Interactional Digital Libraries

Introduction to a special issue on Interactivity in Digital Libraries (Anita Coleman and Maliaca Oxnam - Journal of Digital Information 2.4)

Posted on June 12, 2002 | Permalink

Action, Interaction, Reaction

"Many of the concepts now discussed as interaction design have been around for years, but they tended to be embraced by disciplines such as ergonomics, psychology and human factors, which had other fish to fry." (Nico Macdonald - Spy)

Posted on June 06, 2002 | Permalink

Physical and Virtual Space. How to Deal with Their Interaction?

"We are more familiar with physical than with virtual space both as users and as practitioners." (Paul Drewe - The Journal of Design Research)

Posted on June 01, 2002 | Permalink

Just How Far Beyond HCI Is Interaction Design?

"The scope of interaction design opens up possibilities for genuinely better user experiences of information technology." (Jonas Löwgren- Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on April 23, 2002 | Permalink

Using Conceptual Models in Interaction Design

"(...) how I did it with the creative team at Epinions." (Peter Merholz)

Posted on April 17, 2002 | Permalink

Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction

A Review By Austin Henderson (ACM Ubiquity)

Posted on March 27, 2002 | Permalink

Beyond Human-Computer Interaction

"(...) some food for thought, and a variety of resources and activities to support your exploration of interaction design." (Jenny Preece et al. - Wiley & Sons)

Posted on February 25, 2002 | Permalink

Interaction Design Newsletter 2002.1

"Interaction Design Institute Ivrea is starting the new year with a brand new and long awaited issue of its newsletter full of news and announcements." (Interaction Design Institute Ivrea) - courtesy of brad lauster

Posted on January 21, 2002 | Permalink

Information, Interaction and Place

"According to behaviorists and cognitivists, interaction represents a high-level order of feedback critical to the educational process."
(Brian Stone - LOOP 2001.4)

Posted on January 01, 2002 | Permalink

Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction

"(...) an up-to-date explanantion of the design of the current and next generation interactive technologies, such as the web, mobiles and wearables." (J. Preece et al. - John Wiley & Sons)

Posted on November 28, 2001 | Permalink

Strategies of Influence for Interaction Designers

"(...) there has been a struggle between the structure of a document and its presentation." (Scott Berkun - UIWeb.com)

Posted on November 01, 2001 | Permalink

Masters in Interaction Design and Information Architecture

"When you graduate, you will be able to develop structures of information directed to specific audiences (...)" (University of Baltimore - School of Information Arts and Technologies)

Posted on November 01, 2001 | Permalink

Interaction Spaces for 21st Century Computing

"(...) a conceptual framework for the development of a new an architecture that is oriented towards integrated interaction spaces" (Terry Winograd)

Posted on August 13, 2001 | Permalink

So You Want To Be An Interaction Designer

"(...) how one goes about becoming an interaction designer" (Robert Reimann - Cooper Interaction Design)

Posted on July 03, 2001 | Permalink

Interaction Design Institute Ivrea

"(...) a school and a lab that explores new ways we will interact with computers and communications" (contact the institute)

Posted on December 18, 2000 | Permalink

Gain

Journal of Design for the Network Economy (American Institute of Graphic Arts)

Posted on December 12, 2000 | Permalink

LOOP 2000.11

The AIGA Journal of Interaction Design Education (American Insitute of Graphics Arts)

Posted on December 07, 2000 | Permalink

OVID: Object, View, and Interaction Design

"(...) a formal methodology for designing the user experience based on the analysis of users' goals and tasks" (IBM Ease-of-Use)

Posted on September 24, 2000 | Permalink

CyberBridge

A multimedia site on 4D-design (De Montfort University)

Posted on August 01, 2000 | Permalink

LOOP

The AIGA Journal of Interaction Design Education (AIGA & Virginia Commonwealth University's Center for Design Studies)

Posted on June 27, 2000 | Permalink

InteractionArchitect.com

"(...) promotes the development and exchange of expertise, methods, tools, visions, testimonies, and research we need to design useful and usable interactive systems" (Sim D'Hertefelt)

Posted on June 15, 2000 | Permalink

Make Way for Interactive Assistance

Part 2 of What is Interaction Design and What Does It Mean to Information Designers? (Craig Marion)

Posted on May 23, 2000 | Permalink

InteractionArchitect

The meeting space for interaction architects (Sim D'Hertefelt - Usability Architect Icon Medialab Belgium)

Posted on April 25, 2000 | Permalink