Interaction design
Designs the dialogue between a person and an interactive product: what they can do, how they discover it, how the product responds and how the person knows what happened.
What it deals with
A digital product isn't just seen: it responds. If it isn't clear what can be done or what happened after an action, people get lost even if the screen looks nice.
Principles
Signifiers
You can see what can be done and where.
Mapping
The relationship between each control and its effect is obvious.
Feedback
Every action gets an immediate, clear response.
Conceptual model
The person understands how the system works.
Constraints
What shouldn't be done is hard or impossible to do.
Applications in design
Use it like this
For each action, define what the person sees before, during and after.
Avoid
Designing only static screens: interaction lives in transitions and responses.
Don’t fall for it
If something needs instructions to be used, check its signifiers first.
Especialidades
Haptic design
Designs what you feel through touch when using a device, mostly vibrations, to inform without looking.
XR design (extended reality)
Designs virtual, augmented and mixed reality experiences, where the interface fills the space around you.
Automotive HMI design
Designs how a car's screens and controls are used without taking attention off the road.
Ubiquitous computing design
Designs technology spread across everyday objects and spaces, connected and almost invisible.
Tangible interaction
Designs interfaces in which digital information is touched and moved with physical objects.
Multimodal interaction
Designs systems used through voice, gestures, touch and screen, using whichever works best at each moment.
Methods and tools
- MethodPrototypingBuilding quick, incomplete versions of an idea to test it before developing it.
Connections
Builds on
Authors and works
- 2007
Bill Moggridge
Told how he named the discipline with Bill Verplank and collected interviews with some forty interaction designers.
- 2013
Don Norman
Formulated basic principles of interaction, such as signifiers, mapping and feedback.
Sources
Original sources
- Moggridge, B. (2007). Designing interactions. MIT Press.
- Norman, D. A. (2013). The design of everyday things (Rev. and expanded ed.). Basic Books.
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