This discussion (of whether an interaction design Masters project should prototype, or deploy, or perhaps neither) has attracted some interest, which is great.
For me, the basics are pretty clear -- you require designerly modes of working, which includes creating things and listening attentively as they talk back to you. But the challenge lies in situations where a typical prototype is not adequate for capturing the key elements of use experience -- it doesn't talk back, as it were. Mauro mentioned this out as well. Andrei replied to Mauro by pointing out that tools are increasingly becoming available that essentially enable non-engineers to build "the real thing", or close approximations of it. I would like to connect back to the initial post from Jack that sparked the discussion. The example of facilitating a community for female cancer victims is, in fact, a very challenging case. Not primarily for technical reasons -- standard Web technologies and prototyping tools should be sufficient, as per Andrei's post -- but because it is a fundamentally social situation. The key elements of use experience in this case are not related to the interface and the navigation of a web site, but to the ways in which a woman who has been diagnosed with cancer connects with other women who are or have been in a similar situation. How this social structure unfolds and plays out in practice is virtually impossible to predict based on the backtalk of pencil sketches, wireframes and prototypes. It is equally impossible to capture in conventional user testing. Christine makes a similar point in her discussion of interactivity. This was the reason for me to make the following, rather complicated, suggestion of what I would have looked for as a teacher in this case: > - a design detailed to the level of a prototype presenting her new > ideas on how to "facilitate a community for female cancer victims", > plus > > - a good line of arguments backing her claim that the new design > would in fact facilitate the community. This is not equal to > "building the whole site, deploying, observing use in practice" but > could be approached by, e.g., a triangulation of > -- field studies of existing communities, > -- sociological theory on bereavement/illness community mechanisms, > -- reasoning around key design decisions and explored alternatives, > and > -- experiments with elements of her key ideas through roleplay, > dramatization, or longitudinal mid-fi off-the-shelf-component-based > prototype testing. This situation is increasingly common as notions of "social media" sweep the corporate world and our students' minds. I find that I supervise an increasing number of Masters students who want to develop communities of various kinds. To me, it seems that sociological theory, media theory and communication theory is growing in importance for our field along with this development. We may have to realize that the kinds of prototypes we are used to consider in interaction design are basically incapable of backtalk on the level of social emergent structures. Regards, Jonas Löwgren ________________________________________________________________ *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
