David - I would be interested to know how you differentiate Interaction Design from Interactive Design at SCA.
I've used many different titles over the last 15 years. I used to call myself and interactive designer, but so many people thought that meant I was a graphic/product designer that designed in a certain manner (i.e., jumping about or grabbing people or dancing or something) that I dropped it in favour of interaction designer. Most accurately, I design interactive experiences which could range from milliseconds in an UI to much longer experiences. I think the shift from the adjective 'interactive' to the noun 'interaction' is important in helping people understand that we actually design 'things', it's not just an approach. Carl - the problem is still, as I see it, that those 'things' we design as interaction designer aren't very tangible, they're experiential even if they have physical (or screen) elements. Those intangibles are often the difference between something engineered and functional and something pleasant and engaging to use. Those intangibles are largely what gets measured by the variety of techniques used here. To answer your two very good questions: "What do Interaction Designers do that nobody else does?" We spend more time designing the interactions between people and things (and people and people in service design) and work out how to make those interactive experiences 'better', for want of a better word. "And what don't Interaction Designers do, that other designers do?" I can code a bit and I can design a bit, but I don't call myself a graphic designer or a coder, but knowing that stuff helps me work with those people. I certainly don't call myself a product designer because I have two left-thumbs in the workshop. For my part, I don't make the final parts, be it the UI visual elements, the code (or at least the core code) or the object. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=40375 ________________________________________________________________ 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
