The Future of
Interaction Design as an
Academic Program of Study
Kevin Conlon

Savannah College of Art and Design | [e-mail]

What is required today to understand the notion of interaction design? Looking at most academic programs, it seems that a loose variety of interdisciplinary study opportunities, vaguely related to each of the facets within the overall discipline, can be thought to provide some sort of cohesive body of knowledge. This is unfortunate, but worse is the common perception that, because of interaction design’s breadth, we cannot widen our view in order to synthesize a more cohesive knowledge of the discipline; instead, we rely on this piecemeal approach that serves the parts rather than the whole.

When it comes to interaction design, in general, most colleges and universities think too small. And even more problematic, schools tend to avoid looking at the shifting of the political, economic, environmental, and cultural landscapes. Without necessarily being very intentional or well-informed in their efforts, schools create academic programs without really thinking about what purpose they will ultimately serve. Unintentionally or not, they perpetuate the status quo by not letting their students think very far beyond the margins of current cultural and technological markers.

Schools also tend to buy in to a consumerist model in thinking about how human interactions via technology (like social-networking websites and multifunction devices) shape the experiences and the relationship opportunities between the user and the tool, rather than examining how the user appropriates technology as needed to shape personalized relationships and relationship opportunities with other users. There’s a subtle but important distinction in these two points: One humanizes resources and relationships, while the other depletes both.

Ultimately, even if courses and programs designed by conventional standards serve the notion of a future for interaction design by happy accident, they end up being reactive instead of proactive by following trends instead of anticipating them. Schools need to think bigger by reestablishing their dominance as crucibles for change and encouraging students to think creatively about not only the problems of today, but also tomorrow.

 

Rejecting the Silo Approach Because of its newness and breadth, or because of the vested manifold interests from which it draws intellectual resource,

or because it requires political skill beyond their comfort level, many academics throw up their hands and give in to the temptation that there is no other way to create a program that moves the discipline of interaction design to a level of prominence that can see a difference in how we think about users, technology, and resources. They tend to fall back on educational models that are familiar because they promise some level of perpetuity and security. While the comfort of the familiar is very reassuring, it is a false promise to a variety of stakeholders, especially the future.

Further, the problem of intellectual domain within typical academic departments defined by subject-matter expertise complicates matters tremendously. In a silo and turf-driven setting, it is not uncommon for the interdisciplinary, piecemeal model to dominate what we are coming to know as interaction design. So it’s no surprise that within the typical academic institution, the notion of interaction design is still confused with and within a variety of related academic departments and their subject-matter assignments, depending on which facet of the discipline is being examined.

Some might suspect that this