Interaction Design, 6th Edition

Chapter 2THE PROCESS OF INTERACTION DESIGN

• 2.1 Introduction
• 2.2 What Is Involved in Interaction Design?
• 2.3 Some Practical Issues

 

Objectives

The main goals of this chapter are to accomplish the following:

• Reflect on what interaction design involves.
• Explain some of the advantages of involving a range of people as participants in the interaction design process.
• Explain the main principles of a people-centered approach.
• Introduce the four basic activities of interaction design and how they are related in a simple lifecycle model.
• Consider some practical questions about the interaction design process.
• Consider how interaction design activities may be integrated into other development lifecycles.

2.1 Introduction

Imagine that you have been asked to design a cloud-based service to enable people to share and curate their photos, movies, music, chats, documents, and so on, in an efficient, safe, and enjoyable way. What would you do? How would you start? Would you begin by sketching how the interface might look, work out how the system architecture should be structured, or just start coding? Or, would you start by asking people about their current experiences with sharing files and examine the existing tools, for example, Dropbox and Google Drive, and based on this begin thinking about how you were going to design the new service? What would you do next? This chapter discusses the process of interaction design, that is, how to design an interactive product. ...