On Jun 23, 2008, at 12:08 PM, Fred Beecher wrote:
Overall, I like your modifications... But I might leave "Interface
Design"
in there.
Ok... this is probably a semantic problem. What do you, and Dan, mean
by "interface design" then? Do you mean taking all that theory and
translating it to screen-based pixels and use of OS widgets like
menus, radio buttons, checkboxes, drag and drop behaviors and I/O
models? Or something else?
Again, what a lot of people call "interaction" design I've called
"interface" design when it pertains to software and digital products.
When I got started with interface design in the early 90s, I worked on
3D modeling, rendering and animation software, then jumped into pixel
editing, vector drawing and mutli-page layout and construction, a
large portion of my work was "interaction" design as near as I can
tell by what I hear people say off this list. Just that I include
*more* than just the interaction part, as I also help to define the
visual look (icons, color, type, composition of any screen elements),
along with higher level metaphors and organizing principles about the
interface on the whole.
For example, when I helped define Free Transform in Photoshop with
Mark Hamburg, I had to work with him on how to do 6 main transforms
using only 3 modifier keys, while having to adjust locked aspect
ratio, mirroring and distortion dynamically on the fly. Also had to
understand issues about pixel resampling and understanding how to
handle the limitations of what Mark could do at the engine level while
working with him to create as flexible an interface to transform as
possible. That work is still in Photoshop today just as we designed it
12 years ago.
When I was doing animation software for 3D objects back before I
joined Adobe, I helped to design a keyframing interface for 3D objects
in time, laying them out like music notes in sequencing software, then
allowing for the defined animation to be squashed and stretched in
time without the use of spreadsheet like keyframing interfaces.
I created an image composition program early in my career that treated
images and pixels more like page layout objects, and had worked out a
lot of layering issues in terms of how they work on a 2D screen before
they appeared in Photoshop.
This is what I call "interface" design. All of what's needed in order
to do what I've stated above requires an understanding of all the
courses laid out by Dan Saffer. Having a class on "interface design"
seems counterintuitive to me, because it's not clear how you learn to
do what I've outlined above as an activity on its own. The Student
Project would be something along the lines of what I've laid out
above, so it makes little sense to me to have "interface design" as
its own class per se.
The are too many people who use the term "interface" design and mean
"visual screen design" which is often a glorified term for someone who
draws icons. This type of thinking seemed to become prevalent right
aroun the same time the web broswer became a big deal, which is rather
ironic imho since "interaction" is fundamentally crippled when
designing applications inside a web browser. I've said this many times
in the past, but I don't just draw icons. Coming up with a music
metaphor like sequencing, and applying that to 3D object animation is
not something someone who just draws icons does.
So, that was a long winded way of asking what you mean when you say
"interface design."
--
Andrei Herasimchuk
Principal, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world
e. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
c. +1 408 306 6422
________________________________________________________________
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
