An introduction to interaction design
Interaction is the influence of persons or things on each other, encompassing action and communication. In the context of digital and networked products and environments people influence a system to achieve a purpose, and feedback is supplied by the system to the user as to their success, and the new state of the system. Interaction design considers human cognition and emotion, context of use, task analysis, user experience and learnability, understanding of functions, error feedback and failure recovery.
The form of traditional products, such as a typewriter, implied something about their function and how they were intended to be used. Information technology products can take almost any form, from a mobile phone to a bank ATM, thus their function in many cases bears a less obvious relation to their form.
Interaction designers craft the resources, for action or influence, that mediate what happens between people and products. These resources are the elements, constructs and dialogues we see, touch, and hear in our relationships with people, products and environments.
The focus of interaction design has, to date, been on graphical user interfaces (GUIs) in personal computers and, latterly, in mobile devices such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants.