What is Interaction Design? A Beginners Guide
In Simple words, ‘Interaction design is the conversation between product and user’.
A Good design is conversational, what it means that design should be able to converse with the users by informing users of what performing particular action will lead to and by keeping the messaging simple as well. If the conversation is difficult or boring, then the user would simply leave and talk to someone more interesting.
Steve Job rightly stressed on the importance of having good Interaction Design. He once said , ‘Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works’. All Successful Designs have Great user experiences that leads to the user’s overall experience and satisfaction with a product.
And in order to create great User Experiences, you must understand interaction design. This article serves as a good starting point for people interested in learning about Interaction Design.
In this Article we shall Learn
What is Interaction Design?
5 Dimensions of Interaction Design.
Interaction Design Principles
let’s Start
What is Interaction Design?
Interaction Design is abbreviated as IxD. Interaction Design is designing interaction between users and products. The Ultimate goal of interaction design is to create products that allow users to achieve their objectives in the most efficient way.
From computers to mobile devices to appliances to all interactive digital products to environments; Interaction Design (IxD) seeks to design meaningful relationships between user and the products (physical/digital) or services that they use.
John Kolko — the Author of Thoughts on Interaction Design, has beautifully captured the essence of Interaction Design as
“Interaction Design is the creation of a dialogue between a person and a product, system, or service. This dialogue is both physical and emotional in nature and is manifested in the interplay between form, function, and technology as experienced over time.”
What is interesting is that Interaction Design (IxD) synthesizes and imagines things as they could be while considering to satisfy the users. As we discussed in the beginning that an interactive design is conversational which means that with every input added, there is an action or feedback associated with it.
Hence, it is important to note that interaction between a user and a product (digital/physical) or service, often involves many elements which includes aesthetics, sound, UI elements , and more.
People often confuses and overlaps interaction design and UX design. Interaction design is infact a Subset of UX Design. We shall discuss about it later.
5 Dimensions of Interaction Design.
The five dimensions of interaction design helps us to understand what interaction design involves. Gillian Crampton Smith, Interaction designer and a pioneer of computer desktop publishing, first introduced the concept of four dimensions of Interaction Design language. Kevin Silver later added the fifth dimension.
What is Interaction Design.
lets understand what are the 5 Dimensions of Interaction Design.
- 1D: Words.
Words communicates information to users. Information should be such that it is meaningful and simple to understand. Words encompass text, such as button labels, menu items, tags which help give users the right amount of information. Too much Information can overwhelm the user.
Hence, Convey the information in such a way that users gets an organic experience while interacting with your business. Furthermore, you must consider whom you are talking to when you write, talk in a way that addresses the right demographic. Use simple concise language.
- 2D: Visual representations.
Visual representations are graphical elements such as images, typography and icons that aid in user interaction. These Visual representations acts as supplement to the words while communicating information to users.
Furthermore, these visual representations can be anything that is not a word and plays an extremely important role in grabbing user’s attention.
Consider presenting some information with an Image and words beneath it. User is more likely to understand the information if presented visually rather than only in textual form. Visual representations are, indeed as powerful as words.
- 3D: Physical objects or space.
Physical objects are the medium through which users interact with the product or service. A simple example can be when a user interacts with Microwave while in the kitchen. Here the Physical object is Microwave and Space is the kitchen.
Other examples can be user interacting with their smartphones in the living room, or surfing a website on their computers.
User’s physical environment can affect how he or she interacts with a Product/service, hence you must take these considerations in the Interaction Design.
- 4D: Time
The 4rth Dimension might seem a little abstract. Basically, it refers to media that changes with time such as animation, videos, sounds. Motion and sounds play an important role in how a user navigates and interacts with a product.
Time helps users understand visual changes in a UI. It also helps users track their progress and or resume their interaction some time sometime later.
- 5D: Behavior.
Behavior includes action as well as reaction when User interacts with the product. Moreover, the previous four dimensions influence a user’s interaction with a product.
One of the most important part of Interaction design pays is in fact considering how users perform actions during their Interactions. For instance, how users perform actions on a website, or how users can operate a Washing Machine.
Theis dimension also looks at emotional feedback from the users. The feedback is then used to form new recommendations in order to enhance the user experience.
The first three dimensions of Interaction Design enable interaction, whereas the other two defines interaction. . It is important to remember that whether the things that afford action are virtual or physical because Interactions are tangible acts. For example, clicking a button on a website or stepping on the accelerator of Car.
And it is the job of Interaction designers to utilize all five dimensions to consider the interactions between a user and a product in a holistic way.
Interaction Design Principles
As we just discussed that, the Ultimate goal of interaction design is to create products that allow users to achieve their objectives in the most efficient way. Or in other words ‘To create a great user experience’. For that reason, it is important to understand the Principles of Interaction while developing Products (physical/digital) and services.
Some of the major Interaction Design Principles are
- Consistency — Consistency is achieved by keeping design elements uniform throughout by making sure that they look and behave in the same way.
- Minimalism — Design from the perspective of user while ‘Keeping it simple’. avoid any blingy or unnecessary elements.
- Discoverability- All objects necessary for the successful human-computer interactions should be visibly accessible at all times
- Learnability-Interactions should be easy to learn, and remember for the user without facing issues to use it again.
- Conceptual and Mental Models- Mental model is an explanation of someone’s thought process how something works in the real world. Conceptual model is a representation of a system that uses concepts and ideas to form said representation.
- Feedback –For every action that the user takes, the Design should give a meaningful reaction.
- Mapping- It represents which control is connected to what action on the product.
- Visual Hierarchy- It refers to arranging and presenting the design elements in an order that allows users to understand information easily.
- Affordances and Signifiers- The presence or absence of a signifier determines how easily the user can understand the object’s affordance.
- Constraints- It is about determining ways of restricting the possibilities of user interaction to make sure that only specific things visible to user.
Thankyou for Reading.😀
