I find there are two ways of looking at this problem. 1) What do I need to do my job today? 2) What will it take to advance practice and discipline and community?
The first group are "d"esigner/developers/engineers. The latter tend to be interaction designers. Part of this is about environment. Part of this is about background. Part of this is about personal taste. If you are in the camp, that its all "blank" and it doesn't matter how or if you dissect the pieces, I suggest, this conversation is not pertinent to you, or your practice or your future. In essence it is an academic endeavor, at best is entertaining, at worst is filler in your mailbox. If you are in the other camp, and believe that the trees make up the forest and not the other way around, this discussion about semantics, roles, and titles is at worst entertaining, and at best incredibly strategic. Here are the background questions that concern me: 1) What does the future of formal education look like for the eco-system of interaction designers? 2) What are the problems, and how do we solve these problems that are coming up in the next 100 years? Big #, right? But I love how Allan from Core77 Thurs night said that "designers don't design things they design consequences." That's HUGE. Further Sigi Moeslinger will be talking about a common interaction design notion of interaction design is designing interventions. 3) How do we know that a design is good? From an art critic perspective? I bet those in group 1 could care less, so long as it makes money. To me that perspective is Souless design and is the difference between an HTC and an Apple. Even IKEA has more soul in their design eco-system than HTC or ASUS or Disney between Katzenberger's departure and Pixar's acquisition. 4) Human Resources - I'm sick of people responding to job descriptions they have no right to respond to. And I'm sick of head hunters not knowing what it is I do. This wastes time and thus money and well spirit and soul. I got a note from someone who said, (paraphrasing), "I've been calling myself a UI Designer for 20 years. All of a sudden this group comes a long and now says that what I've been doing is Interaction Design. WTF?" Well, my response is, I bet someone else will change that. I.e. Royal College of Art changed the name of their program from Interaction Design to Designing Interactions. What it means, I'm not so sure, but I'm not really all that upset about it. --d ave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=25077 ________________________________________________________________ *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
