Interactions - November/December 2010

On Experiences, People,
and Technology

November + December 2010

When Richard and I took over editing interactions magazine, we proposed a vision statement that would drive our work. I repeat it here:

We see a world rich with culture, emotion, and human connections. The human-built world can afford a sense of beauty, sublimity, and resonance, and through our advancements in technology can come advances in society. At the center of these advances are interactions—conversations, connections, collaborations, and relationships—within and across multiple disciplines, with and without technology.

A key element of our vision has been a recommitment to the original vision of interactions as described by John Rheinfrank, Bill Hefley, and Brad Myers: a focus on practice, and a publishing venue intended for practitioners. But the practice of interaction design has changed since interactions launched in 1994. The Internet has matured, as have our tools, methods, and vocabulary, and so our dialogue has elevated to include language of judgment. Mobile technology has completely disturbed business as usual. New concerns of privacy, information ownership, and policy have crept into our discussion, and old concerns of sustainability, appropriation, and time to market still drive our debates.

In reflecting on the 200,000 words we’ve
published in the past three years, I see a com-
mon theme that describes interaction design as
a discipline focused on culture and behavior.
This is not necessarily an unprecedented view-
point, as scholars like Bruce Archer, Richard
Buchanan, and others involved in academia have
long since articulated this view of design as a
liberal art and not a science. But the theme is
certainly new, and provocative, for a number
of our readers who are approaching interaction
design from a perspective of computer science,
usability, and HCI. For these practitioners, inter-
action design has traditionally been considered
an applied science, one that requires a deep
knowledge of technology, an understanding
of both cognitive psychology and human fac-
tors related to perception, and an awareness
of machine capabilities. Indeed, this magazine
is published by the Association for Computing
Machinery—an unlikely home for a magazine
that, since fall 2007, has engaged in dialogue
about sustainability, privacy, innovation, science
fiction, brand, marketing, and humanitarian
aid in developing countries. Among my favor-
ite pieces that exemplify this new perspective
are Apala Chavan’s “The Washing Machine
that Ate My Sari—Mistakes in Cross-Cultural
Design,” Bruce Sterling’s “Design Fiction,” Richard
Seymour’s “Optimistic Futurism,” and Chris
Pacione’s “Evolution of the Mind: A Case for
Design Literacy.” These pieces, and nearly all of
the others that we’ve published, question our
work by contextualizing it in the hopes, dreams,
experience, and emotions of real, regular people.
This is a dramatic, conscious, and important
shift from conversations of artificial intelligence,
computer learning, cognitive proof tutors, and
usability evaluations.