The Thought In Form
“Interaction Design’s Early Formal Education & Beyond”, a recent article by David Malouf, touches on an issue almost central to my thesis; the education of designers, specifically designers of interaction. While I focus on the issues screen designers face when studying interactivity, he address views about interaction design that hold “…the belief in the separation between form and interaction.” and that “This myth can no longer be maintained – definitely not in education.”
I couldn’t agree more. Though, I’ve never felt the need to make such a statement. I’m exceptionally interested in interaction, but early on I decided to restrict my studies to those with screens; an area with its own idiosyncrasies (like any design discipline), and an area I was familiar with. I always figured that any attempt to find and articulate fundamental interaction principles outside of the screen (with physical forms) would at minimum require a breadth of knowledge far removed and beyond from my expertise. I also felt that any ‘universal’ ideas of interaction without some kind of embodiment in context would be relatively useless for students who require small specific problems in order to refine understanding, sensitivity, craft, and their ability for critical analysis.
Coincidentally, in the Arnheim I’ve been reading he argues at length about artificial separations between perception and thinking. In his work he explains the importance of the cognitive functions implicit in absorbing the world around us and how strong the ties are between perception and ‘higher level’ thinking; thinking which has traditionally been viewed as being separate from the forms that surround us, when in actuality it’s largely built out of it. Even while it’s valuable to abstract phenomena from context, it’s folly to disregard the existing or potential effects specific contexts have on those phenomena.
It is the relentless attachment to the world of the senses from which great ideas take flight.
-Rudolf Arnheim
Hi Ian,
I think you might be taking my statements too far. Please remember that the article is trying to contextualize about early career development.
At the masters level I do believe that IxD is separable, and it is important to have some academic and even specialized practice that thinks of interaction as a part as opposed to as an amalgem of the design elements.
– dave
Certainly.
I was also considering the study of interactivity in the early stages of a designer’s education. That detail though was a little… omitted…
At the masters level I completely agree that the broader contextual issues addressed by IxD can and should be investigated outside of more pragmatic formal considerations (just as any graduate study should expose students to the broader contextual and historical contingencies of their work).
Even in (my) undergrad at DAAP I felt the partnership of studio classes focused on practice paired with seminars focused on theory to be really useful.
What I’m confused by is, unfortunately, a rather personal experience; Graduate designers studying human centered design methods, reading about affordances and mental models, that organize great personas and use cases, then struggle to trasform that information into an insightful interface proposal, let alone innovative ones.
I’ve had only some experience working with UX (or equivalent) guidance, (which was never a bad experience per say). I know to beware the indignent man, so excuse me if I edge towards inflammatory, but I have a genuine question:
Design skills are difficult to train and develop. Correct me if I’m wrong, but learning a UCD methodology is less so. Combined with the fact that even a little user research goes a long way, why should an screen designer take direction from an equally experienced creative and technical writer (for example) with an IxD degree, when they could be trained to due their due diligence for the user, or better yet, simply advance to a _position_ of interaction designer after years of practice?* If the growth of a designer has always been in broadening the context that they work within, from form to content to environment to strategy [citation needed!]. How is IxD not THE advanced design degree but instead a specialized design discipline?
(Follow the conversation here: http://johnnyholland.org/2010/01/13/interaction-designs-early-formal-education-beyond/)