Chapter Introduction | Web Resources | Assignment Comments | Teaching Materials

How many interactive products are there in everyday use? Think for a minute about what you use in a typical day: cell (mobile) phone, computer, personal organizer, remote control, coffee machine, ATM, ticket machine, library information system, the web, photocopier, watch, printer, stereo, DVD player, calculator, video game . . . the list is endless. Now think for a minute about how usable they are. How many are actually easy, effortless, and enjoyable to use? All of them, several, or just one or two? This list is probably considerably shorter. Why is this so?

Think about when some device caused you considerable grief—how much time did you waste trying to get it to work? Two well-known interactive devices that cause numerous people immense grief are the photocopier that doesn’t copy the way they want and the VCR or DVD that records a different program from the one they thought they had set or none at all. Why do you think these things happen time and time again? Moreover, can anything be done about it?

Many products that require users to interact with them to carry out their tasks, e.g. buying a ticket online from the web, photocopying an article, setting the alarm on a digital clock, have not necessarily been designed with the users in mind. Typically, they have been engineered as systems to perform set functions. While they may work effectively from an engineering perspective, it is often at the expense of how the system will be used by real people. A main aim of interaction design is to redress this concern by bringing usability into the design process. In essence, it is about developing interactive products1 that are easy, effective, and enjoyable to use—from the users’ perspective.

In this chapter we begin by examining what interaction design is. We look at the difference between good and poor design, highlighting how products can differ radically in how usable they are. We then describe what and who is involved in the process of interaction design. The user experience, which has become a central concern of interaction design, is then introduced. Finally, we outline how to characterize the user experience in terms of usability, user experience goals, and design principles. An assignment is presented at the end of the chapter in which you have the opportunity to put into practice what you have read by evaluating the design of an interactive product.

The main aims of this chapter are to: