Interaction design

INTERACTION DESIGN

ARE WE ADAPTING OUR MACHINES OR ARE WE ADAPTING OURSELVES?

“If there is a simple, easy principle that binds everything I have done together, it is my interest in people and their relationship to things.�

- Bill moggridge

A BRIEF HISTORY

OF INTERACTION DESIGN

When talking about the history of interaction design it is hard to distinct the boundary between the history of interaction design or the more general history of computing.

The question whether interaction design only can be possible with the help of a screen is key. It can even be said interactive design starts with the invention of the stone spearpoint made by the primitives. Or does interaction design roots from the first steam machine, phone or car? If we state interaction design covers the whole field of devices, analogue or digital, which respond to human behaviour, then it is legitimate to say interaction design started before the web. The web only brought previously disconnected forces together.

To set a more defined frame let us take the first time the words interaction design were spoken out.

The term interaction design was first coined by Bill Moggridge, a British designer, author and educator. and Bill Verplank, a designer and researcher, in the mid-1980s. Both the inventors are especially interested in the way how people behave and what the effect of computers would be on human behaviour. To Verplank, it was an adaptation of the computer science term user interface design, or UI, to the industrial design profession. With user interface design is mend the screen which appears when starting the computer and which allows the user to travel easily through the complicated computers, mobiles and other electronic devices their landscapes. Adapting UI to the industrial design would mean the integration of user interfaces into industrial design objects.

Which would make them interactive.

To Moggridge, interaction was an improvement over soft-face, with which he mend the combination of user interface design and the software which was and still is used to control the devices.

So before interaction design there was only interaction. Interaction design means there actually thought about the way the communication between man and machine should be. There is payed attention to the needs of people.

The practical The interaction design label remained relatively marginal until the mid1990s; the design community largely considered the behaviours of the virtual world to be a specialty within industrial design.

During this period, academia as well as ICT industries were mainly occupied with usability and human factors engineering, focusing on ways to operationalize psychology and ergonomics into methods for creating efficient and error-free interactions to support work tasks.

There was no attention for virtual shapes, colors or any other way to include aesthetics.

“The difference between a machine and an interactive piece is within the communication. People speak the language of the machine, interactive design speaks the language of the people.�

The aesthetic Historically, there has been a tendency in human-computer interaction, usability engineering and human factors to focus on instrumental and technical aspects. Interaction design as a designerly activity would insist that the aesthetical and ethical qualities can never be ignored or factored out.

Whether something looks and feels good to use, and whether it makes you comfortable in terms of social accountability and moral standards, has a real impact not only on the overall user experience but also on measurable, instrumental outcomes. The communication of the design towards people should feel natural and is desired to take place smoothly. For an interaction designer, users are whole people with complex sensibilities and design processes need to be conducted accordingly.

So to conclude, the practice of “interaction design” grew from the need to level the languages of humans and objects to make the communication between them easier in a way that makes sense, meets their needs, is consistent and coherent and “usable” and ultimately desirable. Machines, like the computer, which were disgraced by people before they were armed by an UI suddenly became wanted objects.

Simply because people could now understand them. Interaction design build the bridge between the complex computer systems and the even more complex human being.

INTERACTION DESIGNING Today we can find an insane amount of interaction design, both in need of a screen and not. In the design process we consider some important things in order to create a good working design.

First thing that has to be considered is the way a user can interact with the interface and/or the object, the motion. Nowadays we are able to start an interaction not only with a keyboard, a mouse or a button, but we can also activate interactions by using our fingers and our voice.

This gives both the user as the designer a lot of freedom. Using these designs becomes effortless in this way.

The “usability�, can someone easily use this, is the most important design issue. Can a new user learn to navigate the interface, how many ways can you interact with the system ? In an ideal world, a user remembers every function after a single use. Reality is much different.

Familiarity and intuition must be designed into every interface. Next to that, we also focus on how much control does the user have within the interface, how visually appealing is the interface and does the user enjoys using the interface? Since every interaction is a conversation between your user and product, your product better be friendly, interesting, and helpful.

In here we also have to consider space, what type of environment is the user interacting with, is the design created in two- or three- dimensional space?

Words

Visual

1D, simple to understand and written in such a way that they communicate the information to the end user.

2D, visual representation, all the graphics or images, essentially everything that is not text.

We consider these five dimensions, they make up the communication between a user and the screen / object.

Physical

Moment

Behavior

3D, this can be both the object and the space, this refers to physical hardware, whether it’s a mouse and keyboard, a mobile device, an object, as long as the user interacts with it.

4D, the length the user spends interacting with the first three dimensions. This includes the ways in which the user might measure progress as well as sound and animation.

5D, the emotions and reactions the user experiences while interacting with the system. But also the changes the user will go through while and afterwards using the system.

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY Cognitive psychology is the study of how the mind works, and what mental processes that take place there. These processes include “attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and thinking.” While psychology is an immensely broad field, there are a few key elements of cognitive psychology that are particularly valued, and in fact may have helped form the field of interaction design.

Mental models

are the images in a user’s mind that inform their expectation of a certain interaction or system. By learning the user’s mental model, interaction designers can create systems that feel intuitive.

Interface metaphors

make use of known actions to lead users to new actions. For example, the trash icon on most computers resembles a physical trash can, in order to alert a user to the expected action.

Affordances

are things that are not only designed to do something, but that are designed to look like they are designed to do something. A button that looks like a physical object you can push, for example, is an affordance designed so that someone unfamiliar wth the button will still understand how to interact with it.

The concept of affordances is that a function must speak for itself, and suggest its own use.

Signifiers, a sign’s physical form (such as a sound, printed word, or image) as distinct from its meaning, hint at the affordance. Without signifiers, users can’t perceive the affordance.

In the example, you can see a button design. Consider, this examples is relevant until now, at least we still understand that this is a button.

Although today designed buttons are in many different dimensions.

Think about the buttons on the internet, a smartphone or even buttons that are activated by just touching them with a finger.

Perhaps in the future our interpretation of what a button looks like will change even more.

Signifiers also work as metaphors, because people also need to know why they would interact with something, not just if it’s possible. For example with the icons on a smartphone, the metaphorical images (phones, envelope, musical note) communicate the purpose.

One of the hardest parts about being a practicing interaction designer is the speed of change in the industry. Every day, new designers are taking the medium in a different direction. Consequently, users are expecting these new kinds of interactions to appear on your website. The prudent interaction designer responds to this evolution by constantly exploring the web for new interactions and taking advantage of new technologies—while always keeping in mind that the right interaction or technology is the one that best meets the persona’s needs, and not merely the newest or most exciting.

WHAT DID INTERACTION DESIGN BRING US? Interactions design has improved the relationship between humans and devices and machines. Therefore increased the capabilities of the human race. Machines are extensions of our bodies which help us in many different ways.

Interaction design fosters the collaborative approach to innovation and it’s constantly trying to improve the relationship between humans and technology. Some may say that it has even improved the development of the human race by facilitating the advancement of medical research, food production, communication and other human activities.

Advanced technologies are getting more and more accessible for almost everyone by the use of interaction design. Every improvement made sprouts from the wish to make machines more understandable for humans. A significant example of a computer simplifying development is the ditch of the screen. Nowadays interacting with machinery is possible without touching any button, switch or screen. We can already control machines by only our voices, movements in mid-ary or even eye movements. And taking it even a step further High-tech systems are measuring our behaviour and adapt on it on themselves.

Humans don’t have to tell the machine what to do anymore the machines will know what we want. Controlling devices could not be any simpler than that.

One can hope that as the industry is perfected, technology will continue to become more user-friendly which will simplify communication and grant access to life-saving technologies across the world.

It saves time It comforts us Easier access of knowledge Engagement with products Which could result in longevity Adaptable to individuals Direct influence/feedback is possible

Technology driven interactive design as a use to renew outdated products

LITTLE BOX Sometimes an iPad is more or less an overpriced toy, what with all of the apps, games and different capabilities. But what if the nostalgic gizmos of fun times past were updated to make the tablet device a beautiful and interactive toy — no gaming experience required?

Joelie Aeschlima, a design student at the School of Art and Design in Lausanne, Switzerland, created three wooden music boxes, aptly named ‘Little Boxes’ that play music when cranked on an iPad. When one of the boxes is set on the iPad screen, the tablet recognizes it and plays music when the box is cranked. Each box is a different side and plays different sounds, on top of that, they each create visuals when interacting with iPad. The graphics are somewhere between interactive screen-saver and old school kaleidoscope.

THE HUB Designed for a generation that is interconnected through digital tools, the CityHub takes the idea of temporary accommodation to a whole new level.

Each guest can get a personal RFID wristband, which allows them to check in and use the bar by themselves, eliminating many of the inefficient procedures usually found in both hotels and hostels. The idea behind the project was to create an environment that caters to the needs of modern, digitally, travelers. On the contrary there is no need for human to human service.

Among other digital features, the hotel offers access to an app which includes interactive travel guide tips and a chat room that allows guests to share information and connect with each other.

Real-time suggestions from a CityHost provide information on current events and activities.

Touch screens, interactive features, mood lighting and futuristic sleeping units

ONTO WHICH EXTEND HAVE HUMANS ADAPT TO MACHINES? The whole essay is stating that Interaction design is based on the principle the machines have to adapt to the nature of human beings.

But is it also working the other way around?\ Is interaction design also working the other way around?

Is the human human evolving evolving towards towardsthe themachine? machine?

Is the Are we, as as society, society,changing changingour ourbehaviour behaviourdue duetotointeraction design?

Are we, interaction design?

In the entire history of humans can be noticed we adapt to our environment to increase our chances to survive. It would be only logical to assume humans changed since interactive objects, devices and machines are omnipresent in our daily life.

Hypothetically spoken it could be said it will become more important to understand how to handle technology than then to know how to interact with other living creatures. Not only will our bodies think it will be more important to have a profound know-how about technology to increase survival changes but it will also be extremely easy. In the very essence the human being is an efficient creature. Of course the easier options will cost less energy and will therefore be the more attractive path to choose.

The more interaction design is developed, the easier it will get.

PREDICTING THE FUTURE Everyone who have seen the film “Her� was shocked about how close we actually are to replacing human contact for technology driven interaction design. In this movie the interactive devices are so exact on understanding the needs and behaviour the main character deeply falls in love with the network. Until he finds out she, the network, also works for other people. The networks takes on different personalities depending on who she is working for. The network knows her users personally. Can show empathy.

Another great example is the movie Wall-E. What seems like a happy childrens animation at first sight actually shows a future in which every activity of people is supported by interactive machines. They are floating around on levitated chairs so their bone structure becomes unnecessary. Besides that there is no real human contact between the people. In the film they show a first contact moment between two of the humans. They seem to be extremely happy with this real emotional replacement, contact with a screen could not provide the same.

Although these examples seem quite radical, modern diseases like the text-neck, the Laptop thigh disorder and Sweeping finger disorder are taken very seriously. A sign our bodies need to change in order to solve these inconveniences. More and more classes, doctor appointments and business meetings are taking place online. There is even a little woman in our Iphones, Siri, to whom you can talk and who is controlling our phone according to your wishes.

They are floating around on levitated chairs so their bone structure becomes unnecessary.

What if in a near future we would be able to let design do the thinking for us?

Actually we are heading steadily towards these absurd scenarios. For example the twitter robot which can imitate your writing style and create new tweets by analysing your tweet history. If you consider that you only need to put in information which can develop itselves, like an algorithm, we don’t need to think anymore. Like mentioned before, interaction design is replacing human contact with machinery already.

Though until this moment we created these systems to make our life more comfortable, but to what extend?

Considering the many films, series and books, which are predicting our ‘digital’ future, but also the development of technology in the last 20 years, we could sketch a plausible model.

Imagine that your house will be controlled by a like minded algorithm.

You don’t have to worry about the temperature, the lights and, maybe, even the groceries. This system could organise your days , schedule meetings and create to do lists. It will alarm you when you need to move, this way you don’t have to manage your own time. As easy as that sounds, we would start to exist within the system.

At first the product was designed from the character and needs of the owner, but after a while, like all algorithms, the system would continue developing on its own. This could mean that the owner would start to behave after the system instead of the other way around. In this case the question would rise, are we interacting with the design or is the design interacting with us?

ARE WE ADAPTING OUR MACHINES OR ARE WE ADAPTING OURSELVES? The answer is not as black and white as the question might imply. By adapting the machines using interaction design to make them more understandable humans are adapting themselves, simply because of the fact machines will be used more often. We will use the devices as a tool to accomplish our daily tasks. This does not mean we are not willing to adapt. Taking in mind; machines make our lives easier.

A big issue which can not be overlooked upon is the notion of empathy and trust. The extreme scenarios of described in this essay are not that likely to happen in a short notice. Humans do not have the trust in the possibility of the machines to feel empathy. And where there is no trust there will never be full adaption. The contemporary growth of the level in which we, humans, allow ourselves to interact with machines will stagnate at a certain point. The moment it will scare us. This can already be seen in the fact people still prefer face to face meetings instead of using, the easier option, skype.

As long as the trust issue is not solved, the future of interaction design will be caged in the function of empowering humans instead of replacing or adapting other humans or more traditional objects. Another question which might raise, is there any more considerable development in interaction design possible? Or will it stay more or less in the stage in which it is now?

Because of the haze of newer, more, better, shinier technologies interaction designers tend to forget the human needs. Do we want to turn on the music with the wave of our hand, is it highly necessary to be able to check our e-mail with the wink of an eye?

The future of interaction design lays in the challenge to make it human again.

SOURCES www.karenmcgrane.com Article; what is interaction design history What is the difference between the history of interaction design and the history of computing?

Wikpedia interaction design wikipedia page about. interaction design the encyclopedia of human computer interaction The history of interaction design and user interface. www.cooper.com Is_ixd_a_dead_end_job?

Prospects for the nearby future of interaction design and job opportunity in this field. www.worrydream.com Article; A Brief Rant On The Future of Interaction Design The future of interaction design which is merely based on the hands. www.wired.com Article; human interaction design For the future of interaction design is it necessary to make the design human again. www.websuccessteam.com Article; Interaction design relationships people computers Benefits of interaction design until now. www.dailyerecord.co.uk Article; Illnesses brought on by our addiction to modern technology Which modern diseases can be linked to the use of interaction design?

Interaction+design The book of design history. www.usability.gov What and why interaction design.html www.whitevoid.com Design studio focussing on interaction design www.inhabitat.com The city hub

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