On Jan 19, 2008, at 12:17 AM, dave malouf wrote: > The fact that I feel equally strongly that mentioning the word > digital in an organizational definition is unnecessarily limiting. By > its very nature IxD is form agnostic.
I'm not so sure. How can IxDA be form agnostic if one product has a digital component (an iPhone) and another one might not (a standard wall phone)? The inherent "interaction" of the two is significantly different, due to the distinction of the digital component and what that component provides the designer of the product to do. (For this example, pretend the phone is more like the one you used back in the 1970s or even 1980s.) If the interaction were similar but not distinct enough, I guess I would concede the point, but the two things are radically different in how people use them and how they are designed. > I should be able to move between > designing the entire interface of a mobile computer system > (http://tinyurl.com/2ltawl - Motorola Wearable Enterprise Computer) > -- the software and the outside interfaces and then also move on to > designing iTunes. Both of those examples are digital, aren't they? I think the question is can you go from designing the interface of iTunes to redoing the flow of how FedEx operates door to door package delivery and services. Or how you can move from working on a mobile computing system to changing the way medical services are offered to the public via insurance companies or such. > Now if in your world all aspects of this design eco-system fit under > digital, then great. But when you say digital, and then start talking > about #'s of people doing web/software it sounds like you mean > digital = software and wouldn't even include things like tangible > interfaces, VUIs, location-based interactions, ambient interactions, > etc. I do mean digital equals software. Or even more fundamental: code. Anything that requires code, logic, interaction, presentation, etc. Digital requires a microchip in my view, and needs code to be useful, or its just expensive sand. > But that is just because as you keep raising the lens to higher > altitudes the differences fall away. I would much rather have SIGs > within IxDA on web, on even enterprise web and hardware design and > services (I like the POS system example, Dan) then to limit the > nature of interaction design is at a foundational level. Understood. But if you get too broad, how is that helpful in the trenches? What do you gain by being broad, especially at this stage of the game? > Now, I do not make the decision for the organization except through > my own voice. I think it would be sad to create an IxDA that > wouldn't really include everything, b/c I think there is so much > that web designers can and should learn from the hardware IxDs who > quite frankly have been doing IxD a lot longer (having coined the > term in the 80's). What is "everything?" You keep saying that, but I honestly doubt it really is "everything." I'm pretty sure it's a list of things. In that list of things, the question becomes what is useful and what is not as useful for a design practice. And if the useful is more digital, why shy away from it? If its not, so be it! At least we'd know. > A great example of IxD work that I use in my history of IxD slides > where digital isn't there, is the behavioral and system design of > the communication system between the bridge on a large ship and the > engine room. There is a merging of voice, graphics, and tangible > interfaces throughout, yet not a single microchip or transistor until > about 50 years ago. > The rules of IxD that you used in building Photoshop & the suite of > graphics and communications tools under the Adobe banner are the same > ones used by those who designed that system at an Human > Factors/Ergonomics level, but also at the level of behaviors to meet > goals and motivations. You'd have to list out what you think those rules are. I know exactly how I went about the design of the Adobe common interface to form the basis of the Creative Suite way back then, and how I made decisions, and what criteria I used, and how I could only do certain things given company politics, technology, constraints, shipping schedules, etc. I'm the one who defined it after all. But unless you list out what rules you think I used and the rules used in your system deign example, I can't comment on the relevance of your point yet. It might instructive to follow through on that to see where it leads us. > If your vision of digital can include the design of a Razor as well > as the design of Songza it is so broad that it well, is unnecessary, > so why focus on it at all? The Razor or Razr? (I assume you mean the phone, right?) If you mean the form factor and industrial design of the Razr, then I'm not qualified to do that. I'd have to go back to school or least out to the shed and get my hands dirty building tangible things again like I used to when I did set and production design in my younger days. But if you mean anything that has to do with how the software or digital aspects of the Razr work, then absolutely. This includes finding ways to work with the hardware components that would drive interacting with the underlying software or code. And that's largely the distinction I make. As long as it touches the code portion of the product, thats where I think it becomes digital design, interaction design, interface design, or whatever we all finally wind up calling it. > It just creates limits that may not > (probably won't) be there as we move forward, or even if it is other > new divisions will occur that are even more important. What you call limits, I see as definition. I find that with definition comes clarity. With clarity comes a myriad of possibilities of things I can do or strive towards achieving. It's not a limitation to me, it *guidance.* The very thing I lacked getting into this field and for which I had to find my own way since no one else was defining it very well. (And yes, that makes me grumpy sometimes. Okay... it makes me grumpy all of the time.) > But "behavior" & "interaction" will always be there. I.e. what > happens when digital gets replaced with biological? You tell me. I imagine I'll be too old to know or care when that day arrives. I'll leave the evolutionary path of the profession to those it will impact the most, which is certainly not me. And I'm not sure what to do at all with biological as that scares the pants off me personally. It's outside of my conceptual reality. > Technology distinctions like "digital" are inconsequential to IxD, > so is > focusing on them. Respectfully, I disagree. Design -- when it comes to earning a paycheck -- is not an academic exercise. It has specific processes, specific deliverables, specific practices, and specific ideas by those who practice it. It's useful to know the distinction between industrial design and graphic design, if for anything to figure out which direction you might want to take your career. I think distinctions are extraordinarily useful in helping one to create definitions of how to do one's work day to day, or how to strive for career goals knowing what specifically the profession is at a more refined level. I don't find them restrictive, or constraining, or whatever. I personally find them freeing as they provide the foundation on which to build a body of work. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
