Confusability: The History of Interaction Design

Designing_interactions "This will be the book--the book that summarizes how the technology of interaction came into being and prescribes how it will advance in the future. Written by the designer who was there, who helped make it happen, who pioneered the digital revolution. Essential, exciting, and a delight for both eyes and mind."

Don Norman

I was rather disappointed when I realised that the History of Interaction Design had already been set in stone. I thought that there was still plenty of room for innovation in the field, but it seems that the DNA of Interaction Design has been fully discovered.

If you want to see where you fit into the scheme of things then could can study this diagram of disciplines:

Disciplines

The diagram shows four quadrants, with the horizontal axis dividing human and subjective qualities from those that are technical and objective, and the vertical axis separating physical design contexts from those in the digital realm.We can position the development disciplines in four columns: the design disciplines, human sciences, engineering disciplines, and technical sciences.We see the need for interaction design as a discipline that can create solutions with human and subjective qualities in a digital context.

Chapter 10 - People and Prototypes

I have just ordered my copy after scanning the contents of the book at the companion website.

LukeW mentioned that "Moggridge releasing is a PDF of his book each week for the next 12 weeks on the companion Website", but I was disappointed to see that the download page was already on to chapter three and I had missed my chance to view the first two chapters. After some basic URL hacking I found that the previous chapters were still available online. After that it didn't take a Design Hero to work out that the next seven chapters were also available without having to wait for Bill to publish the link.

I don't know if this content has been published intentionally, but it seems that whoever designed the "free chapter download over 12 weeks" interaction needs to be sent back to school.

Foreword Gillian Crampton Smith answers the question, “What is Interaction Design."
Introduction The author explains the origin of the book, illustrated by two personal stories
1 The Mouse and the Desktop Interviews with Doug Engelbart, Stu Card, Tim Mott and Larry Tesler
2 My PC Interviews with Bill Atkinson, Paul Bradley, Bill Verplank and Cordell Ratzlaff
3 From the Desk to the Palm Interviews with John Ellenby, Jeff Hawkins, Bert Keely, Rob Haitani and Dennis Boyle
4 Adopting Technology Interviews with David Liddle, Mat Hunter, Rikako Sakai, David Kelley and Paul Mercer
5 Play Interviews with Bing Gordon, Brendan Boyle, Brenda Laurel and Will Wright
6 Services Interviews with Live|Work, Fran Samalionis and Takeshi Natsuno
7 The Internet Interviews with Terry Winograd, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Steve Rogers and Mark Podlaseck
8 Multisensory and Multimedia Interviews with Hiroshi Ishii, Durrell Bishop, Joy Mountford and Bill Gaver
9 Futures and Alternative Nows Interviews with Dunne and Raby, John Maeda and Jun Rekimoto
10 People and Prototypes The author’s view of designing interactions, with help from Jane Fulton Suri and Duane Bray

I recommend that you buy your own hardcopy as well as viewing the online version.
amazon.com | amazon.co.uk

Comments

Although the axes are basically the same, Javier's four quadrants correspond roughly to the two quadrants in the left half of Bill's diagram.

Of the twelve discpline names that each of them includes, only two appear in both of their diagrams: "Interaction Design", a term that Bill is generally acknowledge as coining, and "H.C.I.". One or two other terms have similar meanings.

Javier seems to have published his diagram in early 2004, by which time Bill had completed most of his book.

Posted by: Larry Tesler | December 03, 2006 at 05:39 PM