Assuming you start from business needs through research, functional requirements, testing, and UI design, then I see functional design as the entire process with interaction design mainly being the last step.
With functional design, you are trying to figure out which functions you will be supporting of your end-users and how you will support it. The interaction side of it is determining which combinations of controls and events will be used to allow the user to accomplish those functions (in the most usable and "buildable" manner). To be clearer, I should have called it functional UI design. But since I have developed these terms to help our clients understand what we do, I could safely drop the UI. Also, I think my definition above is for a slice of what we do. I mainly work on business process or transactional applications. This makes me wonder, is our field getting mature enough now that it is worth while to define sub-sets of what we do and give each of those sub-sets their own unique nomenclature? _____________ Okay, so then how would you distinguish between an interaction designer and a functional designer? Are they the same? On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:08:41, Nick ixda at humansize.com wrote: I've used the term functional design to help our clients understand the different roles within the design process. The IAs are responsible for the functional design while the visual designers are responsible for the design of the form. When you add to this, form should follow function, you have an adage that helps explain why you want to get your wireframes done before the comps. I think this also serves project teams to better understand the role in a project. If the final design looks like a coat of paint was put on a wireframe, then the [trim] -- Russell Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://gamma.ixda.org/discuss?post=21651 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
