Intraction Design
"Interaction design is more of an art than a science." Discuss this statement in the context of software interfaces and human-computer interaction.As computers become pervasive in our environment, so the problems of user interface design and computer-human interaction become ubiquitous. In the future, human society will be more computerized and people will be supported by computers in their day to day lives. In such a environment those who cannot use computers cannot participate in human society. Thereby, anyone must be enabled to access computers and this is possible by using software interfaces that make human computer interaction possible. The word "design" is often associated with the visual, affective qualities of objects. Artistic certainly play a central role in fields such as fashion, product, interior and graphic design and increasingly in software design as well. Interaction design is "a discipline concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them."(web site). Human-computer interaction is concerned with the joint performance of tasks by humans and machines; the structu
Answers to these questions can be achieved by talking to the real users, and in this way the interface designer can identify what the user requires and proceed with his design. But, the designers can proceed only so far in their heads before needing to test a solution informally, first on themselves, later on colleagues, then on final users. When a solution seems relatively promising it is tested more formally on a new set of users. Only then would it be sensible for the interface designer to proceed with a prototype, and then test this with real data. The process is not linear but raggedly cyclical. One seldom gets it right first off, however careful or experienced the designer--and few people can as yet be very experienced in interaction design. So at each stage they need ways to test ideas quickly at an appropriate level of detail. Working from the interface back to the system, rather than the other way around, makes designers concentrate on the user's needs rather than the systems Before designing screens in detail, interaction designers simulate alternative solutions, using sketches scanned in and roughly animated, to test if they can be made to work. Though concept and surface design are distinct, they must be worked on in parallel. The designer switches between the two, having an idea and immediately making a sketch to see how it could be represented visually; seeing the sketch may generate new ideas which are fed back into the concept. When a concept evolves which both meets the requirements and seems visually representable, the designer starts to design the screens in more detail and consider other qualities of the interface: movement, pace, sound, and so on. The design of the software interface depends upon certain principles which when followed lead to the better software interface.
Some common words found in the essay are:
Computer Interaction, Designing Software, , Software Increasingly, Human Computer, DESIGNERS Interaction, interaction design, interface designer, software interface, human computer interaction, graphic design, computer interaction, human computer, interaction designers, user interface, · user's, software interface principle, computer science, interaction design art,
Approximate Word count = 1359
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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