Interaction Design is the practice of applying user experience principles and user research findings in the design of a solution in a way that helps users accomplish their goals efficiently. This design should be something that provides value for both the business providing the product or service and for the user using the product or service.
It can be as grand in scale as the design of an entire website/intranet or as small as designing a single widget or feature for a mobile application or website. Regardless of the scale, what started off as an idea in someone's head, starts to take form and become something real out there in the world.
This practice includes:
- ideation
- collaboration
- facilitation
- dialogue
- sketching
- whiteboarding
- wireframing
- prototyping
- testing
Sketching prior to wireframes
Interaction Design comes in many forms and my process changes based on the project and client's needs. The classic answer you usually hear is when asking about the right tools to use from the UX (user experience) toolbox is:
"It depends"
And it's true.
Sometimes a sketch on a whiteboard is all that's needed in this stage and sometimes conceptual or detailed wireframes are needed to communicate the designs to various audiences and stakeholders. This can also include the development of a prototype (from a paper prototype to a functioning HTML/CSS/JS prototype) and testing with users to further refine the designs.
Annotated wireframe deliverable
My Experience
I have had experience in many of the different skills in interaction design.
Here are some examples:
- Sketching - Conducted design collaboration workshops where sketching is part of the required activities. I have also worked with clients where sketching is the preferred fidelity of design versus wireframes. Sketching is part of my process no matter what, regardless if the final deliverable is a sketch or a wireframe.
- Wireframing - Extensive wireframing experience with large and small projects under my belt. My wireframing deliverables are always annotated, writing to the audience that will receive them.
- If the deliverable is towards business stakeholders, the wireframes are more conceptual and the annotations describe the approach, giving justification on why that approach solves the problems the design is supposed to address.
- If it is towards developers, both the wireframes and the annotations are a bit more detailed, giving important details on website state, transitions, and behaviour.
- Prototyping - Experienced in creating clickable prototypes, larger prototypes using the great prototyping tools available (e.g. Axure, InVision, and Proto.io to mention a few), and coding my own prototype (using HTML/CSS/JavaScript) if the interaction we want to test is not easily creating using prototyping tools. Testing out a website flow using a prototype is especially helpful in the validaton of a design concept with users as it's a step closer to having test participants experience the real system.
- Requirements - Gathering and managing requirements for projects of many sizes
- Estimation - Estimating projects and the effort required to do the work
- Facilitation - Involved in the facilitation of numerous co-design collaboration sessions
- Project Styles - Both traditional and agile environments