Interactions - January/February 2009

Interactions: Time for Some Change

This issue marks a quiet milestone for us: the beginning of our second year as editors in chief. Year one brought six quality issues, a new look and feel, a new website, a new team of contributors and advisors, a presence at more than two dozen premier conferences, and greatly renewed and expanded respect for the magazine. Our second year begins with a bang, as we are proud to present a very strong January+February issue and several additions to the interactions team.

Our cover story, by Apala Chavan and her team at Human Factors International, describes the trials and tribulations that brands face as they bring their products into the global marketplace. This is accompanied by Jonathan Lazar’s entreaty that these same brands consider an aging audience, and by Eli Blevis’s illustration of the global need for sustain-ability in corporate product offerings. These pieces reflect the major theme of this issue: the need for companies to change their ways and to ensure appropriate social and cultural resonance of the products they make and the services they provide.

Rachel Hinman presents a very personal view into the design process with her examination of the highs and lows associated with project-based creativity. Her piece reflects on the often emotional nature of creating. Steve Portigal offers his equally personal view of creative output—often wrapped in the absurdity of corporate language and presented in a way to convince, manipulate, and persuade. James Hudson and Kay Viswanadha also explore this use of corporate language, as they look into the concept of “wowing” customers.

This issue also includes analyses of: different approaches to design and innovation; different types of interaction; the history of sound in computing; the potential of social network sites to affect society; and much more. You can see why we think this issue is particularly likely to “wow” its readers.

Look for even stronger issues as our tenure con-
tinues, with the following new contributing editors:

• Elaine Ann joins us from Asia. She is the founder of Kaizor Innovation, a consulting company positioned to develop innovation strategies, research, and designs for the emerging Chinese market.

• Lauren Serota is a design researcher with Lextant in Columbus, Ohio, where her work incor-

porates an ever-present passion for cultural diversity and objectivity in the acquisition and analysis of consumer insights for product and service development.

• Mark Vanderbeeken is one of four founding partners of the young and dynamic international experience design consultancy Experientia in Italy. Mark is a specialist in visioning, identity development, and strategic communications, as reflected

in his wonderful blog, “Putting People First.”

• Molly Wright Steenson, forever the “ girlwon-der,” is an interaction designer and design researcher with roots in Web, mobile, and service design. Molly was an associate professor of connected communities at the Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, Italy.

• Marc Rettig, former chief experience officer at Hanna Hodge, is cofounder of Fit Associates. Marc’s 20-plus-year career has been guided by an interest in people, systems, communication, and the power of design. Marc served as features editor for interactions during the mid-’90s.

And joining us as the new (P)reviews Editor is Alex Wright. Alex wrote a great article—“Primal Interactions”—for our first issue, the same issue in which his book, Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages was reviewed.

We are delighted to have all six of these fabulous people join interactions. More additions as well as changes of a very different nature are in the works; we will unveil them in upcoming issues and on the interactions website.

Yet with all of these changes, we are proud to reemphasize and rearticulate our vision represented in the magazine’s title: interactions, or the many types of interactions essential for, on which are based, and that comprise good practice. 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.