What Interaction Design Means to Me
Reflecting back on the past 3 months, it’s amazing how far I’ve come and the amount of work that has been done. My reflection actually start over Thanksgiving break during my family trip to Toronto, where I spent a portion of my childhood. It was pretty unstructured and minimally planned. As we drove down similar roads, we happened to pass my old art teacher’s drawing studio. The lights were on so we thought we would try our luck. Fortunately, Mr.Wang was there already preparing for the afternoon and evening classes. Back in high school, he was the one who helped me prepare my art portfolio for applying to undergrad programs.
While attempting to explain to him about this new pivot in my career path, I actually found it really difficult. I couldn’t use the same simplified answer I had at the beginning of this semester any longer. The on-the-fly definition of Interaction Design I used to give people, before arriving at CMU, was it being “a concoction of part Industrial Design, Graphic Design and Computer Science.” Now, I can’t bring myself to say that any longer because Interaction Design is so much more than that.
Interaction Design is designing for interactions. It is often the intangible portion of a system. These invisible conversations are between us humans and our surroundings. And because of this invisibility, it is really difficult for people, including my former teacher, to grasp the concept.
Mr.Wang asked a lot of questions and I then began to break his preconceived notions about what I do.
It is not just limited to digital media. It is popularized by the tech industry but not limited to it. The buzzword UI design can be categorized under visual communication design and may only be a small portion of what I can do. And it is not full out coding where design is no longer part of the picture. Service design is also part of the picture and it is about strategy: why and how certain things are implemented.
In my long winded list of what Interaction Design is and is not, I landed in user experience. And I tried really hard to make concrete this seemly abstract concept. I went through all the different design categories but where does that leave Interaction Design? It is at the center of all designs. The core values of all these design categories converge in Interaction Design by designing from the user’s perspective; having the user at the center of interest. So designing a table with rounded edges instead of pointy ones is because it is less hazardous and not because it is just more aesthetically pleasing that way. And having a button at the bottom left of the screen is because it is easier to access with one hand rather then because there is free space there. They’re all under the big user experience umbrella. And this user experience is a lot bigger than what is now associated with UX design. It is about making the non-intuitive, intuitive. And in other cases, make the intuitive, non-intuitive. It is designing for behavior.
After these couple of months, I find myself really started to notice these invisible relationships humans have with each other and our environment. I am fascinated. I am really glad CMU’s Master of Design program carries such a broad scope. We as students are never told what designing for interactions is. Instead, we are prompted to discover for ourselves. I’m sure everyone in my class has their own unique take. And I think that is part of the reason why this is such a big topic. Every variation adds more depth. These variations are forever changing and I sure as I continue down this journey, my will too. I can’t wait to see how mine alters at the end of next semester.
