Mar 16, 2009

Interactive Design: Showcase

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Website: J.K Rowling

When looking for a prime example of an 'interactive website', i was constantly reminded of things that were exciting, and involved alot of attention, and then i remembered the J.K. Rowling website. I used to visit this site when i was in early high school, when the Harry Potter books were all the latest rage, and i remember trying to dig up clues and secrets about whats to come in all the future books.

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Why is this such a great example of Interactive Design?
  • This website was dynamic over time. New links and news will appear every few weeks, but they weren't just uploaded in a news feed. All the new gossip and exciting news about what was next in the Harry Potter series was hidden in little crooks and crannies of the website. Clues leading to this and that had to be found by the viewer/interacter to find the juicy goss they want and need
  • J.K. Rowling was also presented in a way that made a single visit to the site exciting. Spend a little over a minute on the site, and the phone will ring (and if you don't answer it it'll keep ringing!). You can turn the light off and on and chase the little spiders and moths away. Over time new items will appear on the desk.
  • It involved the viewer in a way that most websites don't. Instead of presenting all the information in a simple three column layout with a menu at the side or top, the site was just like sorting through all the messy information that normally clutters a desk. Thus, involving the viewer and creating a sense of interactivity.
www.jkrowling.com

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Mar 6, 2009

Interactive Design: A Definition

Interaction design (IxD) is the branch of user experience design that illuminates the relationship between people and the interactive products they use. While interaction design has a firm foundation in the theory, practice, and methodology of traditional user interface design, its focus is on defining the complex dialogues that occur between people and interactive devices of many types—from computers to mobile communications devices to appliances.

Interaction designers strive to create useful and usable products and services. Following the fundamental tenets of user-centered design, the practice of interaction design is grounded in an understanding of real users—their goals, tasks, experiences, needs, and wants. Approaching design from a user-centered perspective, while endeavoring to balance users’ needs with business goals and technological capabilities, interaction designers provide solutions to complex design challenges, and define new and evolving interactive products and services.

The success of products in the marketplace depends on the design of high-quality, engaging interactive experiences. Good interaction design

  • effectively communicates a system’s interactivity and functionality
  • defines behaviors that communicate a system’s responses to user interactions
  • reveals both simple and complex workflows
  • informs users about system state changes
  • prevents user error

While interaction designers often work closely with specialists in visual design, information architecture, industrial design, user research, or usability, and may even provide some of these services themselves, their primary focus is on defining interactivity.

The discipline of interaction design produces products and services that satisfy specific user needs, business goals, and technical constraints. Interaction designers advance their discipline by exploring innovative design paradigms and technological opportunities. As the capabilities of interactive devices evolve and their complexity increases, practitioners of the discipline of interaction design will play an increasingly important role in ensuring that technology serves people’s needs.

In summary, interaction design defines

  • the structure and behaviors of interactive products and services
  • user interactions with those products and services
http://www.ixda.org/en/about_ixdg/what_is_interaction_design.shtml

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