It's a strange question you're asking, since the entire idea of making an interface for something can not happen without influencing people's behavior. Even a UNIX command line influences behavior. As does a keyboard or a mouse. At a dead minimum, interaction design is defined by influencing people to interact.
The only way not to influence behavior is to stop designing things and go live in a cave. Although there are philosophers that would argue even that act of isolation would also influence people's behavior, as the absence of deliberately influencing people's behavior has effects on people that are indistinguishable from influence. And of course the other creatures that share the cave with you would be influenced by your interior design choices. There is no escape! Round and round most philosophical arguments go... All designers make assumptions about what is in their user's interest and what is not. The better they understand the differences between what they as designers care about, and what their users care about, the less of an issue all of this is. A redesign is all about changing people's behavior deliberately, in the hopes that those changes are in the best interest of the user. Ethics enter only when the user feels betrayed, or likely would feel betrayed or taken advantage of if they understood things as well as the designer did. But this is an issue for many creative works. If I see the preview for Star Trek, and see the film, and feel the preview mislead me as to what would be in the film, I might wish to demand my money back. Can you make a preview where this kind of misrepresentation is impossible? Probably not. As preview makers have the goal of trying to get people to see the film - we all know previews are advertising. Now interaction design isn't literally advertising, but every icon, every button, every link, is a kind of advertisement for whatever happens when a user clicks on it. Interaction design can be thought of as influence design. -Scott Scott Berkun www.scottberkun.com > All, > > Since behavior is the name of the game for us, how much influence do you > think we should have on it? Is it simply something we should re-enforce, > or > are we allowed to take it a step farther and introduce new behaviors? This > has been a question that has been rolling around in my head ever since I > was > introduced to Interaction Design and User Experience. > ________________________________________________________________ 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
