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Taking the Guesswork Out of Interaction Design

I know…I know… you're probably sitting there rolling your eyes at the mere thought of another Web buzzword. But hear me out. I, too was a doubter, until I realized that Interaction Design is serious business — a methodology that bridges the gap between user happiness and business success. Sound obvious? I agree, but how many times have you installed software and felt confused from the initial installation dialog box? Do I want full installation, custom installation, or minimum installation? I don't know! I just want it installed. But what if I pick the wrong option? And how would I know? Is this a once in the lifetime deal or can I change my mind? Aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh! Basically, at this point, I cry uncle — and just eenie meanie miney moe my way through it, which I'm guessing is probably not the best or most fruitful approach. But this is an example of a lack of interaction design — it is not a good thing to have software demand responses without informing the user of the consequences, but we see it all the time.

If interaction design had been employed, the program would have presented the big picture from the user's point of view — potentially including an itemized list of features, expressed in terms of what they do for the user, and which are either included or excluded from the various installation choices. And then I, as the user, would have been able to make an intelligent choice and feel good about it. Heck, had an interaction designer been involved, the installation dialog box may never even have been presented - allowing the user to get right down to their work at hand.

In a nutshell, Interaction Design is the definition and design of the behavior of artifacts, environments, and systems, as well as the elements that communicate that behavior. Ok, plain English, Interaction Design allows people and technology to carry on a complex and elegant dance by balancing the respective limitations and capabilities of both — so that everyone feels like Fred Astaire.

Fundamentally, Interaction Design focuses on the following:

User Goals

At its basic level, Interaction Design seeks to create applications that allow users to achieve their goals. The focus on user goals drives the development of the application as it differentiates between the features that will help users achieve their goals and the features that will just get in their way. In the end, this means you don't have to spend time developing features that will bloat your application; you can focus on refining features that users will value.

User-Machine Communication

Interaction Design translates the conversation going on between the user and the technology. In the role of the translator, the interaction designer must understand the user's goals, motivations, and contexts; understand the business, technical, and domain requirements and constraints; and translate this knowledge into plans for artifacts whose form, content, and behavior are useful, usable, and desirable, as well as economically viable and technically feasible. .

Action-Reaction

Sitting at the heart of Interaction Design is the dynamic of action-reaction. The interaction designer must be able to understand and anticipate how people will use the software over time. This means presenting the features that the user wants when the user wants them - making him/her a bit of a clairvoyant (cue Twilight Zone music).

Polite software

Sounds kind of silly to think of software as being rude. But, think about it. Software doesn't clearly communicate - it is inflexible and always blames the user. Consider Microsoft Word — if it were human, it wouldn't have very many friends - no one would tolerate its rudeness or ability to make one feel stupid. One goal of Interaction Design is the creation of software that treats people with the utmost respect — because aren't humans supposed to be the superiors in the human-software relationship?

State

In fulfilling its role as translator, Interaction Design must ensure that the user understands the current state of the application. In the same way, humans use body language and social situation to govern and predict behavior, interactive systems must clearly communicate what type of operations are possible or appropriate at any given time.

Workflow

Yes, I know…another buzzword. Interaction Design is concerned with both the completion of discrete tasks, such as selecting a payment method, and the completion of multi-task goals, such as browsing, selecting, and purchasing an item. Just as movies are created from individual shots into scenes and scenes into movies, the interaction designer uses individual screen elements to create pages, pages to create complex operations, and operations to create a complete application.

Malfunction

Dang it — hate when that happens. As with all forms of communication, misunderstandings and mistakes occur. Therefore, the interaction designer must anticipate and mitigate those problems, ensuring an easy recovery for both the user and the system.

While many design professionals pay special emphasis to one type of stakeholder — the users of the system, the interaction designer takes it a step further by working to meet the business needs of the organization while making users happy. Stakeholder analysis is the designer's tool for synthesizing the potentially disparate views of the user and the business. To perform a stakeholder analysis, the designer must:

1. Identify organizational stakeholders. Asking what the organizational challenges are to a particular project is an excellent way to identify key stakeholders.
2. Prioritize stakeholders. Keeping tabs on the stakeholders' influence and interest in the project — specify their overall goals and objections to the project.
3. Understand stakeholder perspectives. Accomplishing this by conducting semi-structured interviews with stakeholders. Asking about ways that the project may go right, ways it may go wrong, and what sources of data are available can be a good way of moving towards collaborative problem solving. If a stakeholder has strong opinions about the project, it will come through during the interview. Follow-up questions should focus on design alternatives or solutions to the problems raised by the stakeholder.
4. Incorporate stakeholder perspective into design. Visualize designing the project so that the organization sees an increase in return. Sometimes, there will be objections that cannot be satisfied, because the changes required to satisfy the objections would eliminate the central benefit of the project. In such a case, the designer will need to present the business case to the client of how the proposed design meets the strategic interests of the organization.

Simply put, Interaction Design is good business. While hardware improvements speed the performance of machines, Interaction Design speeds the performance of humans. Its mission is to ensure that complex encounters with technology proceed smoothly and naturally and that information is exchanged in the most appropriate manner and form. When Interaction Design becomes a routine part of the development process — as accepted as engineering design or market research — then we can expect applications to become not only more sophisticated but also easier and more pleasant to use.

Published: October 18, 2004