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Interaction Design Imperatives

Beyond the need for principles of the type described previously, the authors also feel a need for some even more fundamental principles for guiding the design process as a whole. The following set of top-level design imperatives (developed by Robert Reimann, Hugh Dubberly, Kim Goodwin, David Fore, and Jonathan Korman) apply to interaction design, but could almost equally well apply to any design discipline.

Interaction designers should create design solutions that are:

Ethical [ considerate, helpful]

Do no harm

Improve human situations
Purposeful [ useful, usable ]

Help users achieve their goals and aspirations

Accommodate user contexts and capacities
Pragmatic [ viable , feasible ]

Help commissioning organizations achieve their goals

Accommodate business and technical requirements
Elegant [ efficient, artful, affective ]

Represent the simplest complete solution

Possess internal (self- revealing , understandable) coherence

Appropriately accommodate and stimulate cognition and emotion

Ethical interaction design

Interaction designers are faced with ethical questions when they are asked to design a system that has fundamental effects on the lives of people. These may be direct effects on users of the system, or second-order effects on other people whose lives the system touches in some way. This can become a particular issue for interaction designers because the product of their design work is not simply the persuasive communication of a policy or the marketing of a product. It is, in fact, the means of executing policy or the creation of a product itself. It is relatively straightforward to design a system that does well by its users, but what effect the system has on others that the system is used on is sometimes more difficult to calculate.

DO NO HARM

Ideally, products shouldn't harm anyone , particularly not the users. Possible types of harm that interactive system could be a party to include:

Interpersonal harm (loss of dignity , insult, humiliation)
Psychological harm (confusion, discomfort, frustration, coercion, boredom)
Physical harm (pain, injury , deprivation, death, compromised safety)
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Environmental harm (pollution, elimination of biodiversity)
Social and societal harm (exploitation, creation or perpetuation of injustice)

The first three of these are somewhat easier to address than the last two and are largely the subject of Part III of this book. The first two require a deep understanding of the domain acquired by research. They also require a buy-in from stakeholders that these issues are within a scope that can be addressed by the project. (Obviously, these last two are not issues for most products; but the reader can surely imagine some examples that are relevant, such as the control system for an offshore oil rig or a voter -ballot-reading system).

IMPROVE HUMAN SITUATIONS

Not doing harm is, of course, not sufficient for a truly ethical design; it should be improving things as well. Some types of situations that interactive systems might improve broadly include:

Increasing understanding (individual, social, cultural)
Increasing efficiency/effectiveness of individuals and groups
Improving communication between individuals and groups
Reducing socio-cultural tensions between individuals and groups
Improving equity (financial, social, legal)
Balancing cultural diversity with social cohesion

Designers should always keep such broad issues at the back of their minds as they engage in new design projects. Opportunities to do good should always be considered , even if they are slightly outside the box.

Purposeful interaction design

The primary theme of this book is purposeful design based on an understanding of user goals and motivations. If nothing else, the Goal-Directed process described in the chapters of Part I should help you to achieve purposeful design. Part of purposefulness, however, is not only understanding user goals, but understanding their limitations as well. Personas serve well in this regard, as the behavior patterns you will observe in researching and creating them will give you a good idea of your users' strengths and their blind spots. Goal-Directed design helps designers to create products that support users where they are weak and empower them where they are strong.

Pragmatic interaction design

Design specifications that gather dust on a shelf are of no use to anyone: A design must get built to be of value. Once built, it needs to be deployed in the world. And once deployed, it needs to generate profitable revenue for its owners . It is critical that business goals and technical requirements be taken into account in the course of design. This doesn't imply that designers necessarily need to take everything they are told by their stakeholders and developers at face value: There needs to be an active dialog between the business, engineering, and design groups about where the boundaries are and what areas are flexible. Developers will often state that a design is impossible when what they mean is that it is impossible given the current schedule . Marketing organizations may create business plans without fully understanding whether their users will accept the ramifications of that plan. The designers, who have gathered detailed, qualitative research on users, may have insight into the business model from a unique perspective. Design works best when there is a relationship of mutual trust and respect between Design, Business, and Engineering.

Elegant interaction design

Elegance is defined in the dictionary as both "gracefulness and restrained beauty of style," and as "scientific precision, neatness, and simplicity." The authors believe that elegance in design, or at least interaction design, incorporates both of these ideals.

REPRESENT THE SIMPLEST COMPLETE SOLUTION

One of the classic elements of good design is economy of form : using less to accomplish more. In interaction design, this economy extends to behavior: a simple set of tools for the user that allows him to accomplish great things. Less is more in good design, and designers should endeavor to solve design problems with the fewest additions of form and behavior, in conformance with the mental models of your personas. This concept is well known to programmers, who recognize that better algorithms are clearer and shorter.

POSSESS INTERNAL COHERENCE

Good design has the feeling of a unified whole, in which all parts are in balance and harmony. Software that is poorly designed, or not designed at all, often looks and feels like it is cobbled together from disparate pieces haphazardly knit together. Often this is the result of implementation model construction, where different development teams work on different interface modules without communicating with each other. This is the antithesis of what we want to achieve. The Goal-Directed design process, in which product concepts are conceived of as a whole at the top level and then iteratively refined to detail, provides an ideal environment for creating internally coherent designs.

APPROPRIATELY ACCOMMODATE AND STIMULATE COGNITION AND EMOTION

Many traditionally trained designers speak frequently of desire and its importance in the design of communications and products. They're not wrong, but the authors feel that in placing such emphasis on a single (albeit, complex) emotion, they may sometimes be seeing only part of the picture.

Desire is a narrow emotion to appeal to when designing a product that serves a purpose, especially when that product is located in an enterprise, or its purpose is highly technical or specialized. One would hardly wish to make a technician operating a radiation therapy system feel desire for the system. We, instead, want her to feel cautious and perhaps reverent of the rather dangerous energies the system controls. Therefore, we do everything we can as designers to keep her focus on the patient and his treatment. Thus, in place of what we might call desire , the authors believe that elegance (in the sense of gracefulness) means that the user is stimulated and supported both cognitively and emotionally in whatever context she is in.

The remaining chapters of this book enumerate what the authors view as the most critical interaction principles in interaction design—there are, no doubt, many more you will discover, but this set will more than get you started. The chapters also contain a sprinkling of design patterns throughout.

The chapters in Part I have provided the process and concepts behind the practice of Goal-Directed interaction design. The chapters to come provide a healthy dose of design insight that will help you to transform this knowledge into excellent design, whatever your domain.

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Cooper A., Reimann R.

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