Interaction Design: An Introduction

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Most interaction designers work on software, websites, and other technology like mobile devices. But interaction designers can also design services which have little to no technology in them. By services, I mean processes and ways of doing activities. So you see interaction designers working in retail environments, figuring out flows of the store. Interaction designers work for the Mayo Clinic, changing how health care services are delivered. You even find interaction designers working with government agencies, making the system of paying taxes, say, better for people.

Of course, services can be a combination of technology and non-technology. Netflix, for example, has its website, but it also has the envelopes that the DVDs get mailed and returned in. Someone designed that service.

Danzico: What was your first experience with interaction design? In other words, was there a time where you saw interaction design emerging as a thing separate from other design disciplines?

Saffer: My first experience with interaction design took place when I was a teenager in the mid-1980s, about 15 years before I ever heard the term "interaction design." I designed and ran a game "online," meaning users dialed in to my Apple IIe using their 1200 baud modems. Of course, I had no idea what I was doing at the time.

But around the mid-1990s, others certainly knew what was happening. Carnegie Mellon established its interaction design program in 1994. Agencies started offering it as service (albeit often mislabeled as "information architecture"), and software companies started hiring people for these roles. Right before the internet bubble burst, interaction design started to come into its own, and it began to get known. In 2003, Alan Cooper changed the subtitle of his seminal book from The Essentials of User Interface Design to The Essentials of Interaction Design. Also in 2003, the Interaction Design Group (now Association) was formed as a professional organization for interaction designers. So it has some traction now.

Obviously, "interaction design" is still not a term you hear often, and probably never will be. But thankfully, "Design" with a big D covers it pretty well.

Danzico: Can you give a good example of a typical interaction design that we're all familiar with?

Saffer: The Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) is something that most would be familiar with — at least most people who might be reading this. An ATM facilitates interactions between banks and their customers. It has an interface — both the digital screen and the physical structure — that has been designed for privacy and rapid transactions by a wide variety of people with a broad range of familiarity with technology. My grandfather — deaf, in his 80s, never owned a computer — used his first ATM only a few years ago. ATMs do a remarkable job of turning the complexities of banking into some clear choices, usable by large segments of the population.

Danzico: I was really surprised by your pointing out that "user-centered design" is only one of four approaches an interaction designer can take. Can you talk about one of these four approaches: what you call "genius design?" At first, it might seem counter to the things we were taught as good researchers and designers, where it was important to do diligent user research.

Saffer: It is counter to what we're told today is good design practice, but I deliberately tried not to judge any of the approaches to interaction design, to include all the ways you can practice interaction design whether I agreed with those methods or not. I find myself moving through most of them frequently, often on the same project.