On Jan 30, 2008, at 9:49 AM, Jeff Howard wrote: > I believe that understanding and caring about aesthetics makes > interaction designers better at their job. But there's a leap from > understanding and caring about the fundamentals to being responsible > for form-giving. Once you make that leap you're practicing Interface > Design.
I agree. But I also think you did exactly what I have a problem with, you gloss over the main concern as I expressed here: ----- My take and fear on this is that "aesthetics" are deemed to be not needed in other aspects of interaction, and are therefore not required as a core skill. That actually winds up being exclusive, not inclusive. Lacking that core skill or focus at the higher definition of IxD trickles down to the medium, and it winds up actually placing walls and barriers in ways that make IxD narrowly focused in the trenches, rather than broad enough to cover what's needed to do the job, which in this particular case would be aesthetic skills and knowledge. Interaction design that requires screens and displays require aesthetics to be successful. ----- Read "not needed" as "not being responsible for form-giving." I'm not tilting at windmills. I've been doing this work for quite some time now (coming up on 20 years). I have seen the progression from "interface designer" being someone who primarily worried about visuals and less about interaction, to someone moving into a realm where interface designers were given control over both form and function, which was great. And then the web hits and "interaction" becomes popular a few years later, which moved the field in the other opposite extreme, which is primarily worrying about interaction but less about aesthetic. Which is not great. Being solely focused on visuals or solely focused on interaction in my experience is not the best way to approach software and digital product design. Why? for the very same reasons an industrial designer doesn't need to ask someone else what color their product should be. It's just lacking as a discipline when there is that split. This is not theory. This actually happened over the last two decades. Further, the latest trend of having interaction designers paired with visual designers as the desired means of practice is a direct result of interaction coming into its own while at the same time *not* making the leap that interaction designers should be responsible for "form-giving." Those issues are very much connected. Here's the bottom line for me: There's a field of work out there that is the equivalent of industrial design or graphic design in terms of weight, importance and theory. Those professions are what Dave calls the "discipline." This new discipline needs a name! If that name is going to be "Interaction" then I think it needs to solve the problem I see out there and as I have outlined above. If the discipline is "Interface" or "Digital" design then maybe its time a new group needs to be formed to finally address the problem and let IxD continue on its merry way being a discipline that addresses a broader need and that can be integrated into industrial, digital or graphic design practices. I'm fine with either situation or scenario, but its completely unclear if this particular group wants to be the "discipline" that desperately needs a cohesive name and organization rallying behind it to change corporate culture and hierarchies. On the one hand, you say "aesthetics" are important, but on the other not important enough to make it core to the *discipline to the degree the designer should actually be responsible for it. (Again, regardless of how it is put into practice, due to logistics of the corporate environment.) How can the inclusion or exclusion of that distinction not be important to an organization that is defining a new field of practice? -- 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
