Full Circle Associates

Tom Erickson is a joy to read. Via Elearningpost I was led to a new piece, Five Lenses: Towards a Toolkit for Interaction Design. Here is a fairly hefty snippet. Go read the whole thing! GOOD STUFF!

"The Roving Tribes of Interaction Design

This volume is concerned with establishing foundations for interaction design. 'Foundations' strikes me as an ambitious metaphor, suggesting, as it does, a solid base upon which a single, unified edifice will be erected. And, following the metaphor a step further, it assumes the existence of a stable, well organized community with a shared set of values that is ready to embark upon a such construction project.

I don't believe these assumptions hold up. To me, the state of interaction design feels more primitive. Rather than being an organized community, interaction design feels closer to being composed of a number of roving tribes who occasionally enounter one another, warily engage, and, finding the engagements stimulating, remain open to other encounters.

If this is the case, how do we make progress? I suggest that rather than trying to construct a unified, coherent account of interaction design, we would do better to take a more syncretic approach, gathering appropriate concepts and exploring their interplay without, however, insisting on resolving their tensions and contradictions.

In this essay I explore these issues. I begin with a definition, and illustrate my approach to partitioning the terrain of interaction design using five conceptual 'lenses.' In so doing, I cover most of what I see as the theoretical roots of interaction design. I then turn to the role of theory in interaction design, and suggest that a good way to begin is to assemble a toolkit of concepts for interaction design that consists of appropriately sized theoretical constructs.
Interaction Design

I define interaction design quite broadly:

Interaction design has to do with the design of any artifact, be it an object, system, or environment, whose primary aim is to support either an interaction of a person with the artifact, or an interaction among people that is mediated by the artifact.

Although some see interaction design as particularly concerned with digital systems--either computer systems or artifacts with embedded computational capabilities--I see no reason to exclude humbler artifacts. The forces that shape our interactions, from perceptual and motor processes such as seeing and touching, to social and cultural phenomena such as imitation and fashion, are agnostic with respect to whether an artifact contains digital components. Indeed, much of what we understand about the design of non-digital artifacts--whether it be how to make a switch with a satisfying 'click,' or how clothing functions as a means of expressing identity--are applicable, as well, to digital systems. Finally, as computer systems become increasingly embedded in our artifacts and environments, and even the most mundane objects are tagged and tracked by digital systems, our ability to discriminate between the digital and the non-digital will fade, even should we wish to maintain it."