Interaction design is designing interactive products to support the way people
communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives. It is about
creating user experiences that enhance and augment the way people work,
communicate, and interact.
1.2 Give a brief job description for an interaction designer
The role of the Interaction Designer is to create the best possible user
experience for the users. Interactive designers use technology to create desired
user experiences. They work primarily with navigation structures and interface
functions. Interaction Designer work on the foundational to the business
application or product being developed; their focus is on how the design will
actually work. The interaction designer spends most of their time with user
research, testing and psychology.
1.3 What is the difference between interaction design (ID) and Human
Computer Interaction (HCI)?
The difference between Interaction Design (ID) and Human Computer
Interaction (HCI) is that Interaction Design (ID) is concerned with the theory,
research, and practice of designing user experiences for all manner of
technologies, systems, and products, whereas Human Computer Interaction
ned with the design,
evaluation, and implementation of interactive computing systems for human
1.4 List different things that interaction designers need to know about
interactions between users and technologies in order for them to create
effective user experience.
- Designers need to understand how people act and react to events
- How people communicate and interact with each other. To be able to create
engaging user experiences,
- They also need to understand how emotions work, what is meant by
aesthetics, desirability, and the role of narrative in human experience.
- Developers also need to understand the business side, the technical side,
the manufacturing side, and the marketing side.
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INF3720 Assignment 1 Stu No: 34759050
,1.5 What are the aspects of user experience that can be considered when
designing interactive products? List any five.
i. the usability,
ii. the functionality,
iii. the aesthetics,
iv. the content,
v. the look and feel,
vi. the sensual and emotional appeal.
1.6
experiences
McCarthy and Wright core threads that make up our holistic experiences:
sensual, emotional, compositional, and spatiotemporal:
i. The sensual thread. This is concerned with our sensory engagement with a
situation and is similar to the visceral level of Norman's model. It can be
equated with the level of absorption people have with various technological
devices and applications, most notable being computer games,
smartphones, and chat rooms, where users can be highly absorbed in their
interactions at a sensory level. These can involve thrill, fear, pain, and
comfort.
ii. The emotional thread. Common examples of emotions that spring to mind
are sorrow, anger, joy, and happiness. In addition, the framework points out
how emotions are intertwined with the situation in which they arise e.g. a
person becomes angry with a computer because it does not work properly.
Emotions also involve making judgments of value. For example, when
purchasing a new cell phone, people may be drawn to the ones that are
most cool-looking but be in an emotional turmoil because they are the most
expensive. They can't really afford them, but they really would like one of
them.
iii. The compositional thread. This is concerned with the narrative part of an
experience, as it unfolds, and the way a person makes sense of it. For
example, when shopping online, the options laid out to people can lead
them in a coherent way to making a desired purchase or they can lead to
frustrating experiences resulting in no purchase being made. When in this
situation, people ask themselves questions such as: What is this about?
Where am I? What has happened? What is going to happen next? What
would happen if . . .? The compositional thread is the internal thinking we do
during our experiences.
iv. The spatio-temporal thread. This refers to the space and time in which our
experiences take place and their effect upon those experiences. There are
many ways of thinking about space and time and their relationship with one
another: for example, we talk of time speeding up, standing still, and slowing
down, while we talk of space in terms of public and personal places, and
needing one's own space.
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INF3720 Assignment 1 Stu No: 34759050
, Question 2
2.1 What do you understand by the term conceptual model?
Conceptual model refers to High-level description of how a system is organized and
operates. It is an abstraction that outlines what people can do with a product and
what concepts are needed to understand interacting with it.
2.2 What are the benefits of conceptualizing the design space?
i. Orientation enabling the design team to ask specific kinds of questions
about how the conceptual model will be understood by the targeted users.
ii. Open-mindedness preventing the design team from becoming narrowly
focused early on.
iii. Common ground allowing the design team to establish a set of common
terms that all can understand and agree upon, reducing the chance of
misunderstandings and confusion arising later on.
2.3 Why are interface metaphors important in interaction design?
Metaphors are considered to be a central component of a conceptual model. They
provide a structure that is similar in some way to aspects of a familiar entity (or
entities) but also have their own behaviours and properties.
2.4 Briefly describe the interface metaphor behind the desktop computer
The Interface metaphors are intended to provide familiar entities that enable users to
easily understand the underlying conceptual model and know how to interact with a
system. The desktop metaphor is an interface metaphor which is a set of unifying
concepts used by graphical user interfaces to help users interact easily with the
computer. The desktop metaphor treats the computer monitor as if it is the user's
desktop, upon which objects such as documents and folders of documents can be
placed. A document can be opened into a window, which represents a paper copy of
the document placed on the desktop. Small applications called desk accessories are
also available, such as a desk calculator or notepad.
The desktop metaphor contravenes ce access and usability
are more important. The recycle bin sits on the desktop, as well as disks (storage
areas which in real world are not found on a desktop. Other features such as menu
bars, task bars, or docks have no counterpart on a real-world desktop.
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INF3720 Assignment 1 Stu No: 34759050
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