New kid on the block, One design
Read on to find out about a new grad student and his introduction of a new field in design.
From being a student of Industrial Design with interests in typography and cognitive psychology, I have come a long way working with Human Factors International. Not only a certified usability analyst, but also with an international consultancy experience at client location, am a reasonably confident professional. While I have handled a customer-facing website for a Govt. agency in USA, I have also worked on a staff-facing application for a leading financial service corporation.
Though it is still a formative period towards becoming a great creative designer, with interactive design, psychology and user-centered research as the core experience in my kitty, and a passion to excel in every assignment by crossing the barrier of comfort zone, I am on a definitive path to fulfil higher aspirations of learning and putting it to practice to meet expectations.
Adventure sports of bungee jumping and sky diving are my new found interests. Contrary to all the high flying, my feet are firmly on ground to respect team work with all the humility and curiosity of a fresher.
I come to the M.Des in Design for Interactions program at the School of Design, Carnegie Mellon university from being a ‘Human Factors Specialist’ for three years. Till date, I don’t know why I was called that. I was designing wesbites and applications for most part and believed i was an interaction designer. Who then is an interaction designer? What does interaction
even mean?
Design; as we know it and as we don’t
Interaction is the dialogue(verbal and non verbal) between entities. It could be two people talking, a human playing with his dog, a living being using a product or two smart devices connecting with each other. The design of interactions is Interaction design. But wait! That would mean interaction design includes designing anything and everything. It is. Period.
Interaction design, User experience design, User interface design, Industrial design, Communication design….the list goes on. Are all of these completely independent of each other? I don’t think so. Let me illustrate this with an example — a car dashboard.
The driver(and passengers) can view the speed, rpm, fuel remaining, switch on/off music, use GPS, turn on/off the AC and many many more functions. They are ‘interacting’ with the dashboard. This means an interaction designer would have really thought hard of what the dashboard has to
be like.
While people are interacting with the elements, they ‘experience’ these in a way the designer intended them to(or not). Turning a switch on and off involves as much an experience as the texture of the leather on the steering. This brings in our user experience designer.
The dashboard is one big ‘interface’ i.e. a bridge between the user and the car’s mechanical(and electrical, etc.) functions. One could say that it is a friendly face to what goes on behind it. An interface designer comes into play. Unlike popular belief, interface design includes but does not stop at screens. The texture on a knob that makes it easier to grip is as much interface design as an icon on the screen.
The industrial designer would surely have worked hard on the materials and aesthetics. But that’s not it. Every line in the form and every material choice impacts how the user uses the product.
Every part of the dashboard is ‘communicating’ with the user — not only the icon on a button but even its shape and size. This would be the work of a communication designer.
Think about it and you will realise that even a piece of clothing designed by a fashion designer involves much of the above — right from how the user feels or the experience when he wears it to what it communicates (like ripped jeans say casual). Do you see how people from these ‘different’ paths in design are doing the same thing?
As a designer, I believe that it is impossible to isolate fields of design and it is all one big field. One big design container. All in one. ‘One design’. One design is the practice of design which encompasses anything and everything design under the sun, or even on and beyond it!
