Unit 1: What is Interaction Design? Flashcards
3 things to consider when designing interactive products.
Who is going to be using them.
How are they going to be used.
Where are they going to be used.
Understanding users to optimise their interactions (5).
What people are good and bad at.
What might help people with the way the currently do things.
What might provide quality user experiences.
Listening to what people want and involve them in design.
Use ‘tried and tested’ user-based techniques during the design process.
Economic arguments for good interaction design (of products within the business). (5)
High staff productivity.
Lower staff turnover.
Morale / job satisfaction.
Less training for system use.
Lower operating costs (a product of the above).
(Opposite applies for bad ID).
Summary of good interaction design.
Easy, natural and engaging interaction between user and product - task performed while users forget they’re using an interactive product.
Examples for safety argument for good interaction design. (4)
Can be human or enviromental safety. E.g.
Cars.
Air traffic control.
Nuclear power plants
Medical devices.
What is interaction design? (3)
“… designing interactive products to support the way people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives.”
I.e. creating user experiences that enhance and augment the way people work, communicate and interact.
An umbrella term for eg. UI, software, user-centred, product, web, experience and interactive system design.
Fields contributing to ID. (3)
Academic disciplines.
Interdisciplinary fields.
Design practices.
Main difference between ID and HCI?
Scope - ID much wider; theory, research and practice of designing user experiences for a range of technology, systems and products.
HCI - design, evaluation and implementation of interacive computing systems for human use and major phenomena surrounding them.
Benefits of multidisciplinary teams. (3)
More ideas.
New methods.
More creative and original designs.
Costs of multidisciplinary teams. (3)
Difficult communication - different perspectives and priorities.
Confusion and misunderstandings - different ways of talking about design; same term for different meanings.
Problems if the team has not worked together before.
Summary of ‘user experience’. (3)
Central concept to ID.
How a product behaves and is used by people in the real world.
“every product has a user experience.”
How do people feel about product - includes overall impression, down to small details.
Comment on ‘user experience’.
You can’t design a user experience, only design for a user experience.
Eg. you can’t design a sensual experience, only create features that evoke it. (Eg. smooth, silky phone case).
Usability?
“… extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.”
Examples of different priorities of multidisciplinary team members that could cause conflicts.
Graphic designer - aesthetics, eg. colours
Teachers - explanations, language, etc.
Software engineers - efficient and correct software.
Basic activities of the ID process. (4)
- Identify needs and establish requirements for the user experience.
- Developing alternative designs that meet those requirements.
- Building interactive versions of the designs so they can be communicated and assessed.
- Evaluating what is being built throughout the process and the user experience it offers.
