The Process of Interaction Design

The Process of Interaction Design

1. What is involved in Interaction Design?

   • Approaches to ID (Saffer, 2010)
     • User-centered
       • Designer translates users' needs and goals into a design solution
     • Activity-centered
       • Focuses on behavior
     • Systems
       • Structured
       • Focuses on context
       • User sets goals of the system
     • Genius
       • Relies on experience and creativity of the designer
   • The importance of involving users
     • Proxy users
       • User roleplayers
       • Used by developers instead of real users
       • Different perspective from someone who uses product daily
     • Expectation management
       • Ensure realistic expectations of the product
     • Ownership
       • A sense of contribution makes the user support the product
   • Degrees of user involvement
     • 1. Just kept informed
       • Newsletters
     • 2. Co-opted
       • Full-time or part-time
       • For the duration of the project or for a limited time only
   • User-centered approach
     • Principles (Gould and Lewis, 1985)
       • Early focus on users and tasks
         • Understand who the users will be
         • Observe and study their normal tasks
       • Empirical measurement
         • Analysis of user interaction with prototypes and simulations
       • Iterative design
         • Cycles of design–test–measure–redesign
   • Four basic activities
     • Establishing requirements
     • Designing alternatives
     • Prototyping
     • Evaluating

2. Some practical issues

   • Who are the users?
     • Categories (Eason, 1987)
       • Primary
       • Secondary
       • Tertiary
     • Stakeholders
       • “People or organizations who will be affected by the system and who have a direct or indirect influence on the system requirements”
   • What do we mean by needs?
     • Understand users and whether they would achieve their goals more effectively if they were supported differently
   • How do you generate alternative designs?
     • Creativity
     • Observation
   • How do you choose among alternatives?
     • Prototyping and testing
   • How do you integrate ID with other lifecycle models?
     • Careful planning

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