On Dec 13, 2007, at 10:43 AM, mauro pinheiro wrote: > Dave, I agree that interaction design is related to designing an > experience. But I guess that sometimes could be very difficult to make > it happen, specially when it comes to a masters program. The project > may refer to a technology that is not accessible, or is too expensive, > and may be impossible to simulate the intended interaction. > > In such a case, maybe it wouldn't be possible even to make a model. > And, on the other hand, sometimes the real experience won't be > achieved in any other way than with the "real thing".
That used to be true. Technology has flattened and become accessible and usable by non-engineers to the degree that it is no longer a good argument. The number of options available for prototyping and making models of products has very much changed as of the past year or two. Consider this: Designers inside nearly every single large scale corporation that make digital products do their production level design work with off-the-shelf software or opensource solutions. They can also now use solutions for the prototyping and modeling of their products as well, not just the production side of things. It's similar to the transition that happened in the photography industry. Off the shelf software like Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture are used by professionals in the industry and expensive proprietary solutions for photography have largely become obsolete. Given that, anyone with a reasonably small investment of about $2,000 to $10,000 (depending on camera and lenses, what computer they want, and which software product they want to use) can purchase the exact same equipment used by the pros. The only thing stopping someone from become a pro photographer is craft, talent, passion and dedication. It's certainly not the technology anymore. The same thing is happening for us. Technology or proprietary solutions needed in the past to build digital prototypes is no longer a barrier. Between Flash, Silverlight, XHTML+CSS+Javascript (using either JQuery or Scriptaculous) or any number of prototyping tools that are starting to emerge, designers in our field can build models and prototypes for pretty much any kind of digital product. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
