Interaction Design: An Introduction

Adaptive Path's Dan Saffer explains the emerging field of designing interactive systems for everyday products and services like iPods and TiVo

by Liz Danzico

If you've been delighted by your iPod, intrigued with your TiVo, or frustrated by your mobile phone, then you have encountered the work of an interaction designer. And an interaction designer, most likely, has crafted the experience we have with many of the products and services we encounter every day. Dan Saffer, a senior interaction designer at Adaptive Path, leads us through an exploration of this emerging discipline. Published this month, Saffer's new book, Designing for Interaction, is a much-needed primer on the topic, helping us understand the design of interactive systems. Voice talked with Saffer just prior to his book being published in July.

Liz Danzico: How would you describe interaction design? And why is it important to write this book now?

Dan Saffer: I have a fairly expansive view of what interaction design is, which is that interaction design is about people: how people connect through products and services. Now, what does that mean?

Interaction design is about behavior, how things work. I push a button on my mobile phone and something happens. Or I enter a fast food restaurant, walk up to the counter, and something happens. Defining what happens when a person uses a product or service is what interaction designers do.

The reason we do it is to enable connections — interactions — between people. People want email and instant messaging and their mobile phones to be easy and fun to use. They want their trips to the DMV to be pleasant and efficient. They want the check-in kiosks in airports to work smoothly and well. All of these things — and many, many more — are about connecting people and helping them communicate better between themselves and the world.

This book is important now because we need new interaction designers and people who understand what interaction design encompasses. Technology is spreading into all corners of our lives, whether we want it to or not. Political, social, and economic forces are making it so. In order to make all this new technology useful and usable by humans, it needs to be designed with humans in mind. That's where interaction designers come in.

Danzico: In the book, you point out that Bill Moggridge (a principle at IDEO) was the first to call the practice "interaction design." Haven't we always been designing for interaction? Why is interaction design, as you (and he) describe it, new?

Saffer: Bill Moggridge and his colleague Bill Verplank at IDEO realized in the late 1980s that they had been doing a different kind of design than what was traditionally called "graphic design" or "industrial design," so they gave it this name (which is much better than their alternate choice: "SoftFace"). But in my opinion, it's something we've been doing since before recorded history. Aboriginal peoples made cairns to mark trails — that is, to communicate through time via a product. Native Americans used smoke signals to communicate over long distances.

The only thing new about it is that now, thanks to microprocessors being embedded into all sorts of objects that can now exhibit all sorts of different behaviors, it's been recognized as a discipline. Somebody needed to figure out how these newly empowered objects should behave, and the tools of design were well-suited for it. Now, you can study it in school, and get paid to practice it. Whereas before, like other types of design, it was simply done without much reflection.

Danzico: In a recent interview with Brian Oberkirch at Weblogs Worknotes, you describe interaction design by saying: "The discipline that makes technology useful, usable, and fun to use. Good engineering is what makes it happen. But interaction design is what makes it approachable for people to use." Is interaction design just about technology, or can it involve other types of products?

Saffer: I was giving the easy answer. It's not only about technology, but these days it often is.