where is Interaction Design going?

Special Interest Areas interaction design
19

just wanted to pitch and compliment this great thread as it is close to my heart. I guess interaction design has become a description for a variety of job titles all defined by their different contexts, which is confusing.

For instance this description, taken from a web design agency of reknown ( actually started in 1977) refers to the trad. information design role which comes from software dev. rather than bastardization of it to mean "design training with strong typographical, motion graphic and interaction design skills. "

Interaction Designer

Duties and Responsibilities
Interaction designers must understand and refine client strategy and develop content and functionality that meets both client objectives and user goals. They must collaborate with visual designers and programmers to develop information architecture and user interfaces, and create proposals, functional specification, flowcharts, and schematics. Interaction designers act as the “user’s advocate” and are responsible for conceptual development.

Requirements
Qualified people have 2-3 years experience developing interactive products, a thorough understanding of user-centered design principles, client presentation skills, writing skills, and experience organizing complex information. Familiarity with principles of Web development as well as Illustrator and Visio is essential.

Anyway aside from this i had experience in interaction design while working as a cook at a strange restaurant in Amsterdam:Supperclub where food/fashion, design/theatre-spectacle/music / formal plan or more often spontaneous was the order of the day. Very different to Ivrea, Medialab europe, experience in terms of process and outcome.

“interaction design” education like Ivrea with some inspiration training and the odd visit from some CEO from an important company. Big PR, some cool research, rarely a cool product, although maybe that happens post- training. My experience is that they are great at the “blue sky” part of the equation, while worse on “landing” something that can enter the market.







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