"Throughout the process of interaction design, designers must be aware of key aspects in their designs that influence emotional responses in target users. The need for products to convey positive emotions and avoid negative ones is critical to product success. These aspects include positive, negative, motivational, learning, creative, social and persuasive influences to name a few. One method that can help convey such aspects is the use of expressive interfaces. In software, for example, the use of dynamic icons, animations and sound can help communicate a state of operation, creating a sense of interactivity and feedback. Interface aspects such as fonts, color pallet, and graphical layouts can also influence an interface's perceived effectiveness. Studies have shown that affective aspects can affect a user's perception of usability.
Emotional and pleasure theories exist to explain people’s responses to the use of interactive products. These include Don Norman's emotional design model; Patrick Jordan's pleasure model, and McCarthy and Wright's Technology as Experience framework." Sourced from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_design#Affective_interaction_design
Sunday, July 25, 2010
User-Centered Interaction Design
I found this on Wikipedia under 'Interaction Design'. I think it gives a good insight into how my Industrial Design thinking should be geared to develop a well defined Interactive Design.
"As technologies are often overly complex for their intended target audience, interaction design aims to minimize the learning curve and to increase accuracy and efficiency of a task without diminishing usefulness. The objective is to reduce frustration and increase user productivity and satisfaction.
Interaction design attempts to improve the usability and experience of the product, by first researching and understanding certain users' needs and then designing to meet and exceed them. (Figuring out who needs to use it, and how those people would like to use it.)
Only by involving users who will use a product or system on a regular basis will designers be able to properly tailor and maximize usability. Involving real users, designers gain the ability to better understand user goals and experiences. There are also positive side effects, which include enhanced system capability awareness and user ownership. It is important that the user be aware of system capabilities from an early stage so that expectations regarding functionality are both realistic and properly understood. Also, users who have been active participants in a product's development are more likely to feel a sense of ownership, thus increasing overall satisfaction." From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_design
Image from: http://justinmjacobssite.com/
"As technologies are often overly complex for their intended target audience, interaction design aims to minimize the learning curve and to increase accuracy and efficiency of a task without diminishing usefulness. The objective is to reduce frustration and increase user productivity and satisfaction.
Interaction design attempts to improve the usability and experience of the product, by first researching and understanding certain users' needs and then designing to meet and exceed them. (Figuring out who needs to use it, and how those people would like to use it.)
Only by involving users who will use a product or system on a regular basis will designers be able to properly tailor and maximize usability. Involving real users, designers gain the ability to better understand user goals and experiences. There are also positive side effects, which include enhanced system capability awareness and user ownership. It is important that the user be aware of system capabilities from an early stage so that expectations regarding functionality are both realistic and properly understood. Also, users who have been active participants in a product's development are more likely to feel a sense of ownership, thus increasing overall satisfaction." From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_design
Image from: http://justinmjacobssite.com/
Interface Design
As Yasu pointed out in week one, Interaction Design and Interface Design are often interrelated. Successful Interface Design can lead the Interaction Design process into a more seamless and carefully crafted end design result. Interface Design however can also be a complex field of study that also encompasses Experience Design, Interaction Design, Information Architecture, User-Centered Design, Persuasion Design and of coarse Graphic User Interface Design or GUI’s. I think half of the process of knowing about Interaction and Interface Design is being aware of the other design fields that directly relate to it and understanding their importance throughout the process, even if they all haven’t been completely thought through and developed.
The first thing many people think of when considering GUI's may be the interfaces of the future portrayed in movies such as Iron Man. So I grabbed this image from this website: http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/general/getting-started-with-interface-design/ also giving a neat introduction to the processes of Interface Design including those previously mentioned.
The first thing many people think of when considering GUI's may be the interfaces of the future portrayed in movies such as Iron Man. So I grabbed this image from this website: http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/general/getting-started-with-interface-design/ also giving a neat introduction to the processes of Interface Design including those previously mentioned.
Interaction Design (IxD)
A bubble graphic overview showing the relations between interaction design and its overlapping disciplines found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Interaction-Design-Disciplines.png
Week One: Thoughts about the topic – Interaction Design
Collabolla, a video game with Spacehopper balls as input devices. Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Triennale di Milano, 2004. Designed by Jennifer Bove, Simone Pia and Nathan Waterhouse. Photo Ivan Gasparini. http://www.designinginteractions.com/chapters/forewordBeing completely honest, I started the semester with a fairly blurred understanding of what Interaction Design actually was and it was only after doing some brief exploration into the design field that I found it to be incredibly new, innovative and appealing. It seems an almost fundamental step for Industrial Designers to take on or at least learn about briefly to be able to grow as a designer in the future. It appears that Interaction Design might just be the design field of the future and if that is the case I’m very enthusiastic to learn as much about it as I can. Not to just to better myself as a designer but ultimately to create better communities and lifestyles that everyone can indulge in. I think this topic was chosen for third year Industrial students because it appears to be quite a complex and intricate field of study that relies on previously achieved knowledge to even be able to try to understand its full potential. My initial ideas about the outcome of this project are fairly optimistic, I think it has the potential to really bring out the genius in a lot of students, myself included, with the expectation that thinking out of the box is almost a necessity to do well this semester. I believe this design direction has a lot of avenues to be explored this semester. Design teams have not yet been finalized, nor has a specific design project direction, this will be done from week 2 onwards, with task allocations and team rules/agreements about team members participation yet to be outlined.
Jonas Löwgren also writes about Interaction design and digital materials.
“The recommended use of the term interaction design is limited to products and services, which more or less rely on digital materials for their realization. This is due to the significance for a design discipline of knowing its respective design materials. It is impossible to design interaction per se, even though the term unfortunately implies otherwise, but what interaction designers do is to create conditions for interaction. It is possible to make some things more likely to happen, others less likely, and the way in which this is accomplished is by shaping the digital materials into tools, props and media for others to appropriate and use.” Jonas Löwgren
http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/interaction_design.html
I firmly believe this is the direction to take for future interaction design projects. The design of a product, digital or even non-digital, to imply, direct and even dictate a users actions to have a beneficial outcome even though the answer or result may not be fully evident whilst the user is “interacting” appears intriguing, interesting and ill-defined/ open to exploration.
http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/interaction_design.html
I firmly believe this is the direction to take for future interaction design projects. The design of a product, digital or even non-digital, to imply, direct and even dictate a users actions to have a beneficial outcome even though the answer or result may not be fully evident whilst the user is “interacting” appears intriguing, interesting and ill-defined/ open to exploration.
Interaction Design - Research
I found this really interesting online article about interaction design by Jonas Löwgren who is an interaction designer, researcher and teacher. Currently employed as professor of interaction design at Malmö University, Sweden. Main areas of expertise include cross-media products, interactive visualization and the design theory of digital materials. I have summarized the reading, however the entire article can be found through the link at the bottom.
He writes:
“Broadly speaking, there are two main senses of the concept, coming out of different intellectual traditions but increasingly converging in practice and research, Interaction design as a design discipline and Interaction design as an extension of HCI (Human-Computer Interaction).
As a design discipline, it is more closely affiliated with industrial design and architecture than with engineering and behavioral science. The "shaping of interactive products and services" is an instance of design work, which broadly shares the following characteristics across design disciplines.
* Design work is about exploring possible futures, starting from a situation at hand.
* It intends to change the situation for the better by developing and deploying some sort of product or service, i.e., the concrete outcome of the design process.
* It considers instrumental and technical as well as aesthetic and ethical qualities throughout the design process.
* Design work involves developing an understanding of the task – the "problem", or the goal of the design work – in parallel with an understanding of the space of possible solutions.
* Finally, it entails thinking by sketching, building models, and expressing potential ideas in other tangible forms.
The other interpretation of interaction design is to see it as an extension of human-computer interaction (HCI), a field originating in experimental psychology and computer science and tracing its roots to the 1970s. HCI was originally oriented mainly towards field studies (of, e.g., existing user populations, their cognitive traits and current practices) and evaluation (of, e.g., an existing product or a proposed product concept). However, it was found that the impact on the resulting products and ultimately on the benefits for the users would be greater if HCI practitioners and researchers would engage in the design rather than merely pointing out usability problems after the fact. Hence, the HCI palette of methods, tools and responsibilities was extended to encompass more creative and generative activities.”
http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/interaction_design.html
He writes:
“Broadly speaking, there are two main senses of the concept, coming out of different intellectual traditions but increasingly converging in practice and research, Interaction design as a design discipline and Interaction design as an extension of HCI (Human-Computer Interaction).
As a design discipline, it is more closely affiliated with industrial design and architecture than with engineering and behavioral science. The "shaping of interactive products and services" is an instance of design work, which broadly shares the following characteristics across design disciplines.
* Design work is about exploring possible futures, starting from a situation at hand.
* It intends to change the situation for the better by developing and deploying some sort of product or service, i.e., the concrete outcome of the design process.
* It considers instrumental and technical as well as aesthetic and ethical qualities throughout the design process.
* Design work involves developing an understanding of the task – the "problem", or the goal of the design work – in parallel with an understanding of the space of possible solutions.
* Finally, it entails thinking by sketching, building models, and expressing potential ideas in other tangible forms.
The other interpretation of interaction design is to see it as an extension of human-computer interaction (HCI), a field originating in experimental psychology and computer science and tracing its roots to the 1970s. HCI was originally oriented mainly towards field studies (of, e.g., existing user populations, their cognitive traits and current practices) and evaluation (of, e.g., an existing product or a proposed product concept). However, it was found that the impact on the resulting products and ultimately on the benefits for the users would be greater if HCI practitioners and researchers would engage in the design rather than merely pointing out usability problems after the fact. Hence, the HCI palette of methods, tools and responsibilities was extended to encompass more creative and generative activities.”
http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/interaction_design.html
What does Interaction Design mean to me?
My initial, fairly uneducated interpretation of ‘Interaction Design’ is defined as the process of considering multiple facets of the design process that are usually unavoidable, but are generally ignored as a whole for one reason or another. This includes areas OTHER than the directly physical or aesthetic nature of a design, which usually solely dominates the design field. Such areas include technology, psychology, sensor actions and processes, subconscious notions/ attitudes / beliefs and instinctive characteristics that all impede on our decisions on whether or not a design is acceptable or unacceptable. However, I believe, considering and combining these areas into the design process is how a successful Interactive Design is achieved with a more holistic approach to the shaping of interactive products and services focusing mainly on their use.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Week One Studio Workshop - Team Work!!!
Tangible Communication Methods
Examples of tangible interactions: Squeezing, hugging, compressing, restraining, throwing, pushing, pulling, shaking, rolling, stretching, pressing, holding, tilting, vibrating, echos, slamming, purposeful pausing/silence.
Ideas that were brainstormed and further thought out was the idea of a Cyborg type arm that can throw an invisible ball and hit someone on the back to get their attention in a silent and invisible format of communication. Another idea was an interactive Voodoo Doll Jacket that would consist of sensitized and compressing foam and wires in synchronicity. Also, the idea that a simple vibrating wire/tapping wire on metal over a 10m space could be utilized in a shopkeeping environment to let the shopkeeper know when someone has entered their store. Finally, a Sound locating device that picks up and gauges frequencies and echoes to define and direct where the sound has originated from, so that you can then go locate the person making that sound.
Materials included: string, wire, copper, sheet metal, fabrics, plastics, rulers, rubbers, foam, tubes, cardboard, wires, glue, tape, casts, memory wire, ballistics gel etc.
Summary of Class: These ideas were generated with the notion of communicating a message without utilizing verbal or symbolic means. As a group we agreed that interaction design would consist of a fairly universal understanding of certain messages such as "hi" "over here!" "look! (at this)" "I like (or love) you" "I'm so angry" "thanks" etc. This group consensus allowed the ideas to be based around fairly universal understandings of gestures and actions that usually or can be used to help communicate a verbal or symbolic meaning from one person to the next. This helped move the ideas into the field of designing an actual product to communicate theses messages via interaction designing, obviously utilizing current technology aspects of the product design processes (R&D aspects and the knowledge gained from previous study assisted in forming semi-realistic ideas that pertained a certain level of future development and overall potential).
Examples of tangible interactions: Squeezing, hugging, compressing, restraining, throwing, pushing, pulling, shaking, rolling, stretching, pressing, holding, tilting, vibrating, echos, slamming, purposeful pausing/silence.
Ideas that were brainstormed and further thought out was the idea of a Cyborg type arm that can throw an invisible ball and hit someone on the back to get their attention in a silent and invisible format of communication. Another idea was an interactive Voodoo Doll Jacket that would consist of sensitized and compressing foam and wires in synchronicity. Also, the idea that a simple vibrating wire/tapping wire on metal over a 10m space could be utilized in a shopkeeping environment to let the shopkeeper know when someone has entered their store. Finally, a Sound locating device that picks up and gauges frequencies and echoes to define and direct where the sound has originated from, so that you can then go locate the person making that sound.
Materials included: string, wire, copper, sheet metal, fabrics, plastics, rulers, rubbers, foam, tubes, cardboard, wires, glue, tape, casts, memory wire, ballistics gel etc.
Summary of Class: These ideas were generated with the notion of communicating a message without utilizing verbal or symbolic means. As a group we agreed that interaction design would consist of a fairly universal understanding of certain messages such as "hi" "over here!" "look! (at this)" "I like (or love) you" "I'm so angry" "thanks" etc. This group consensus allowed the ideas to be based around fairly universal understandings of gestures and actions that usually or can be used to help communicate a verbal or symbolic meaning from one person to the next. This helped move the ideas into the field of designing an actual product to communicate theses messages via interaction designing, obviously utilizing current technology aspects of the product design processes (R&D aspects and the knowledge gained from previous study assisted in forming semi-realistic ideas that pertained a certain level of future development and overall potential).
Week One - Lecture & Studio Session
Lecture Studio Workshop:
Tangible Communication Methods
Lecture content emphasizing the importance of OBJECT - BEHAVIOUR - SCENARIO. The Lecture also summarized the upcoming semester projects, workshops and studio sessions. Yasu also spoke and introduced "Interaction" in design by exploring Action, Reaction and Interaction.
ACTION: ---> Sensor - Processor - Network - Processor - Output Device <--- :REACTION
Tangible Communication Methods
Lecture content emphasizing the importance of OBJECT - BEHAVIOUR - SCENARIO. The Lecture also summarized the upcoming semester projects, workshops and studio sessions. Yasu also spoke and introduced "Interaction" in design by exploring Action, Reaction and Interaction.
ACTION: ---> Sensor - Processor - Network - Processor - Output Device <--- :REACTION
Monday, July 19, 2010
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