Interaction Design

For Interaction Design (ID), the PD tradition represents one meaningful area for the development (Löwgren and Stolterman, 2004). The other area, relevant for understanding ID, is human-computer-interaction (HCI). By tradition, these two areas have focused on the usefulness of digital artifacts. The development within these two areas has similarities such as, focusing on user participation and aiming to gain understanding of the context in which the system is supposed to be implemented to support the users in their everyday and working lives (Preece, Rogers, and Sharp 2002; Löwgren and Stolterman 2004). Hence, ID can be seen as a combination of HCI and PD. As a practice, ID has a lot to thank these long-established disciplines for, for example the several methods and tools that has been developed to help designers understand users and to develop systems that support their actions in effective and efficient ways. However, the ID approach goes further than ease of use, focused on in HCI, with its aim to create an enhanced user experience. In addition, the work-place democracy focus of PD is deemphasized in ID, including private use contexts as well. Winograd (1997) compare interaction designers with architects, the job is to build a space where people can co-exist and communicate. These places should inspire, excite, lift the spirit or provide comfort (Jones and Marsden 2006)