3-1 Intro to Interaction Design

Interaction design (IxD), focuses on the way people interact with products and services. Interaction designers use many different techniques to understand the goals of people and how to provide effective ways for people to accomplish those goals with interactive services.

Standard Deliverable ✓

1. Read "What is Interaction Design?" by Teo Siang.

2. In small groups, choose an interactive product or service to analyze. For example, you could choose a popular website, an ATM, a particular video game console, a mobile app, a mobile phone OS, a thermostat etc.

3. Use the 5 dimensions of interaction design to deconstruct your chosen product. For each dimension, carefully determine how your product uses that dimension.

4. Outline your findings in a one-page document or single slide to share with the class.

5. Share with the class. Challenge each other on the completeness of your analyses. For example, if a product uses GPS, what interaction design dimension does it affect?

Advanced ✓+

Review the last section of the article with the heading "So what do interaction designers do?". Have each person search for a job position related to interaction design but not necessarily titled interaction designer. Add a brief description of each position your group found on a second page or slide. Consider using monster.com, indeed.com, glassdoor.com, or http://ixda.org/jobs/ for your searches.