What is a Interaction Designer?

Interaction Design Skills

The Interaction Designer is a story-weaver – scripting the narrative between man and machine – the dialogue of system response to user action. Goals, behavior and flow are significant strategic concerns, but this skill goes beyond making interfaces relevant and usable. IxD marries personality with each interaction story, creating a system with which users make an emotional connection. Interaction Design and Visual Communication work together to breathe life into software UI. IxD defines the way the user manipulates the interface and Visual Communication determines how that looks in concert with all the other visual elements on screen. Blending analysis and creativity – working between artistry and engineering – Interaction Design concepts muster team consensus around what to build via the user interface layer.

Scenarios, flow diagrams, interaction models, prototypes and wireframes are typical deliverables of interaction design. They capture the desired user experience that is translated into a functional specification.

Because interaction design is primarily about creating intuitive interfaces, a measure of empathy produces the best results. This skill is not a precise science, so humility and resilience in the face of criticism (or sometimes failure) is also good.

Screening tips: Look for an interest in and aptitude for psychology; passion for making things work intuitively; enthusiasm for the difference between good and great interactions. Do they understand how to brand an interaction? Good IxDs make stories; can they hold your interest? The world is full of interaction – they should draw their inspiration widely. They must be comfortable with research and usability concepts too.

So what does user experience include?
In the revised standard we define user experience as ‘all aspects of the user’s experience when interacting with the product, service, environment or facility’ and we point out that ‘it is a consequence of the presentation, functionality, system performance, interactive behaviour, and assistive capabilities of the interactive system. It includes all aspects of usability and desirability of a product, system or service from the user’s perspective’.