God I hope that’s not what I do
Reading Gabby Hon’s CM blog post “Less Talking, More Doing“, I went to IxDA to look at the conversation threads to see if they are as messy as described. (I subscribe to the digest, but it’s kind of work to find the stuff that’s good. My new approach is to ignore the mail and hope that anything that’s good gets blogged about on a blog that I’m following or that someone bothers to twitter.
Anyway, at the site, I saw “What is Interaction Design”:
I’m sure that works out to be technically right (there is a well thought-out tree of UXD with mutually exclusive, precisely defined branches, and products and services covers everything as does structure and behavior), but WTF (W == who) wants that job? Where’s the creative spark, the passion for design?
I’m very lame at defining the field, I’m happy with ‘making technology fun and easy’, or ‘crafting interactive experiences so that they are emotionally engaging, enjoyable, or at the least don’t suck’. So I guess, in fairness, my definitions don’t work. But surely there’s room for passion in there?
Hey there Kip,
Sure there is room for passion, but passion isn’t exactly exclusive to IxD, no?
But let’s move this a bit more forward. The definition has a purpose. It is meant to define a discipline, NOT a job description. Many jobs do interaction design. Some people who do it, bring their passion for creativity and design into it. Others, quite honestly don’t. (don’t know why, but they don’t).
your descriptions/definitions sound more about what you do in your total job and I’m sure it uses many many design and non-design disciplines to achieve those goals.
BTW, to your problem w/ the email list, there is the web site, and that site allows you to follow threaded discussions instead of getting inundated with email. You can even just subscribe to RSS feeds. You can comment back to a thread if you are so inclined directly on the site (you just can’t start a thread on there; a flaw we know about).
David!
The sloppiness of a blog post comes up against the rigor of a taxonomic definition! I just had a gut reaction and wrote quickly, but, let me separate the points in my admittedly hasty post.
Passion — I was actually hoping for some energy in the definition. I understand that accuracy and precision are important, so perhaps this is more of a branding question.
Creative Spark — that’s the real issue. “define the structure and behavior of interactive products and services” could be just that: a written document that defines those things.
Doesn’t feel creative and, given that it’s a design discipline, I thought it should.
No sweat on the lists. I was just observing a change in my behavior overall — I no longer follow any discussion lists, and am counting on twitterers and bloggers to bubble up the good stuff. Too much stuff to read.
Well, you don’t want to make it sound too exciting. Then everyone would want to do it.