I haven't read anything about the relationship of the fields, but I
did get my start working as an Instructional Designer for about 3
years before getting into Interaction Design, so I've thought about
this a little bit.
There are definitely similarities and parallels in the work,
especially the up-front process of doing contextual research to
understand what people are trying to achieve and identifying patterns
of behavior. That's ultimately done to help devise solutions that help
people achieve their goals. This very high-level description of
activities and aims applies equally to both fields.
My own experience as an instructional designer (which I didn't have
any formal education in) was that I didn't have a good process for
explicitly synthesizing the results of the research into something
like personas or illustrated mental models, but the approach and
intent of that up-front work was roughly the same as it is in product
design. Knowing what I do now about mental models and personas, I can
see how these would have been incredibly valuable tools in
instructional design. The little bit of coursework and reading I did
as an instructional designer focused mostly on task analysis and
documentation (as well as pedagogy and the psychology of learning). Of
course, all of these things are also useful and applicable in
interaction design.
As for the artifacts or end products we create, although they are
quite different (training materials that indirectly help people
achieve their goals in one case, and products that more directly help
achieve goals in the other), there are again many parallels related to
figuring out how to best facilitate the success of your audience/
users. In both cases you are creating mediated experiences and tools
that rely heavily on clear communication to achieve an end.
-Adam
On Jul 22, 2009, at 11:02 AM, Bryan Clover wrote:
These two fields seem very related. In fact, one could argue that
instructional design is really the precursor to interaction design.
Both involve in-depth needs analysis, both are focused on defining
user's needs and goals, both involve gathering user feedback via
usability testing. In my eyes, Interaction design is nothing more
than the Instructional design process without the need for creating
content that can actually teach and train people. Has anyone come
across any good articles for comparing these two?
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