IxD has been around for a few years now but the term often elicits a puzzled look from cocktail party patrons when asking the inevitable question, “So, what do you do?” The folks at the Interaction Designers Group site have been working very hard to produce a definition while answering Tog‛s call to action to form an IxD group.
“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
