Contextualizing the Origins of Interaction Design
I came to (Interaction) Design not long ago, and somewhat by accident. While working in non-profit consulting in India, I had the opportunity to immerse myself within a multitude of “operating systems.” Each organization I supported, each passionate founder, each mission driven employee had his or her own understanding of the problem at hand and the frame being applied to solving it. I however, often didn’t agree. My disagreement generally had little to do with the solution and rather with the framing of the problem itself. And, in my search for tools to reframe these problems in more “satisfactory” ways, I stumbled upon design. First, through IDEO’s Human Centered Design for Social Innovation Toolkit. Later through a network of passionate people actively working to change the way problems were being framed and solved in and around India.
The majority of this week’s articles reference the technological origins of Interaction Design, detailing the evolution the discipline, and the vocabulary used to discuss it: human factors, information systems, human computer interaction. Even terms used to describe the various stakeholders have been called into question: computer scientists, engineers, designers; operators, users, end-users. While I find this historical explanation interesting in understanding the emergence of the discipline of (interaction) design, for me it misses some of the more contemporary developments in the field.
Personally, Interaction Design has been defined more by the emergence of Service Design as a formalized field of study, the widespread appreciation for co-design and participatory design methods, the invitation of design to contemplate, and solve for more difficult and “meaty” issues, and the critical analysis of the large scale socio-cultural systems both designers and their designs exist within. While Tara McPherson’s article touches on the interconnectedness of design and its contemporary socio-cultural issues, I did not find (in these readings) an acknowledgement of the role (interaction) design(ers) has begun to play in actively shaping society through the critical design of large-scale social systems.
As (interaction) design is called upon to address larger, stickier, more complex problems, designers are faced with a host of new questions, ethical and otherwise, that deserve a place in the story of the discipline. While I don’t mean to discount the complexity of designing useful and usable software, redesigning healthcare systems, K-12 education, the experience aging — these are problems that require a wholly new approach to design. When considering a new women’s health service, designers must think beyond “acceptance, reflecting a lack of choice” and towards “adoption,” as marker of an empowered and satisfied user (Grudin).
Moreover, designing within large-scale systemic issues often involves a range of stakeholders. The term “user” is complicated as products become services, and services interact within systems. Each human player in these complex networks has an agenda and defines his or her own metrics of success. In this sea of often conflicting goals, designers are called upon to evaluate the ethical ramifications of their decisions, to question the motives of their funders, and to advocate for their users, whomever those might be.
The history of (interaction) design includes a detailed recounting of the various disciplines that influenced the emergence of the field. Now, what is needed is a critical look at the myriad experts that will need to collaborate if designers are to effectively and efficiently solve the scale of problem they are increasingly being tasked with. As a whole, professionals will need to “shake…out of the small field-based ‘normalized, ‘modular,’ and ‘black boxed’” to become transdisciplinary thinkers and actors (Tara McPherson). Universities and design schools are building curricula to meet the increasingly abstract demands of design, and I look forward to seeing how the next phase of Interaction Design history will be written.
