Rutgers University

The designing of interactive products, environments, systems, and services. Common topics include design, human–computer interaction, and software development. A central concern of interaction design is to develop interactive products that are usable, easy to learn, effective to use, and provide an enjoyable user experience to support and enhance the way people communicate and interact in their everyday lives.  Dan Saffer (2010) suggests four main approaches to interaction design, User-centered design, Activity-centered design, Systems design, and Genius design.

Interaction design

Graphic design is the process of visual communication and problem-solving through the use of typography, photography, iconography and illustration. The field is considered a subset of visual communication and communication design, but sometimes the term "graphic design" is used synonymously. Graphic designers use typography, visual arts, and page layout techniques to create visual compositions. Common applications of graphic design include corporate design (logos and branding), editorial design (magazines, newspapers and books), wayfinding or environmental design, advertising, web design, communication design, product packaging, and signage.

Graphic Design

Similar in structure to causal diagrams (i.e. nodes with connections), except the connections are not causal. Nodes contain concepts are organized
in a hierarchy (such as in 1Cademy's knowledge graph).

Concept Mapping

1. To synthesize a solution from all of the relevant constraints,
understanding everything that will make a difference to the
result
2. To frame, or reframe, the problem and objective
3. To create and envision alternatives
4. To select from those alternatives, knowing intuitively how to
choose the best approach
5. To visualize and prototype the intended solution

Bill Moggridge book - "Designing Interactions" - chapter 10

Core Skills of Design

Design Disciplines

A narrow definition
of interaction design is:
“The design of the subjective
and qualitative aspects of
everything that is both digital
and interactive.”

A broad definition
of interaction design is:
‘The design of everything that is
both digital and interactive.”


Narrow & Broad Definition of Interaction Design

Don Norman is the director of the newly established (2014) Design Lab at the University of California, Co-founder of the Nielsen Norman group and Honorary Professor at Tongji University (Shanghai) in their College of Design and Innovation. The term user-centered design came from him in his book The Design of Everyday Things (1988). It marked a shift from the previous term “user centered system design” where instead of focusing on the system itself and the aesthetics of the interface, Norman concentrated on user needs.

Don Norman

Process of solving a product design problem: 
1. Understand your goal (Why) 
2. Define the audience (Who) 
3. Understand customer’s context (When/Where) and needs 
4. List ideas (What) 
5. Prioritize and choose an idea 
6. Solve 
7. Measure success (How)

5W+1H

Design thinking is a process that works to solve problems in a user-centric way. It has a strong focus on users and humans, to ensure that solutions meet their needs.



Steps to design thinking:

1. Empathize: Understand your users

2. Define: Clearly define the problem and their needs

3. Ideate: Brainstorm potential solutions, create ideas

4. Prototype: Build your solutions

5. Test: Test out your solutions

Design Thinking

I feel that this statement, "Dan Saffer (2010) suggests four main approaches to interaction design, User-centered design, Activity-centered design, Systems design, and Genius design." should be linked as a child node rather than grouped together into this. There is a lot of content in this node and could be made more clear by breaking it down further into more granular content

re-structure nodes

In software development and computer science, ubiquitous computing refer to the idea of computing could be and is made to appear anytime and everywhere. Reflecting to Interaction design and User Experience Design, the term is refer to the idea that user interaction could be in many forms, from laptop computers, phones to everyday objects such as lamps and glasses.

Ubiquitous Computing

Important questions to consider when designing for interaction include the following:

- Defining how the user interacts with the interface: What does the user do with their finger, stylus, keyboard, or mouse to interact with the interface?

- Giving users clues about behaviors before actions are taken: What does the appearance (color, shape, size, animation, etc) of an element or system tell the user about what happens when an action is performed?

- Anticipating and mitigating errors: What kind of constraints are put in place to prevent errors? In the case of an error, what kind of error messages are provided for the user to correct the problem?

- Considering system feedback and response time: How long does it take between an action being performed (for example: clicking a button) and the product responding? What kind of feedback is given to the user once the action is performed?

- Strategically thinking about each element: Are you following standards? (Fitt's law, metaphors, having an understanding of how elements function)

- Simplifying for learnability: Is the format as simplified as possible for the users? (This includes decluttering, number of choices, removing complexity, using familiar user flow patterns)

Questions to consider when Designing for Interaction

- Activity-Centered Design
- Inclusive Design
- Ethical Design
- Industrial Design
- Designing for Autistic People
- Product Design
- Emotional Design
- Systems Design
- Genius Design

Types of Designs

- Storytelling
- Prototype
- Concept Mapping
- Visual Direction


Elements of Design

- Motor Behavior 
- Feature Detection (Ware)
- Common Ground
- Extrema 
- IDEO Methods Cards
- Observation 

Design Techniques 

Gestalt principles are laws of human perception that describe how we group similar elements, recognize patterns, and simplify complex images when we perceive objects. These principles include Proximity, Similarity, Continuity, Closure, Symmetry, Figure/Ground, and Common Fate. Understanding these concepts can be enhanced by observing them in real-world examples.

Learn Before

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