Dave/Pankaj, I think you're both making valid points, and the answer is, as usual, "it depends".
I would normally tend to side with Pankaj's side of the argument. I have yet to meet many IxD's who are interested or experienced in designing a device driver communications protocol or a data interchange schema. To borrow a page from Stephen Covey, our Circle of Influence is usually focused on human-technology interactions, though interactions of the human-human and technology-technology kinds may well lie within our Circle of Concern. That being said, as our influence as a profession broadens and the value of the methods we use is recognized, we may well be asked to bring our skills to bear on human-technology interactions that masquerade as technology-technology ones. Pankaj's example, API design, is a prime example of this. Although an API superficially documents the way one software module can interact with another, it can also be seen as a means by which a developer (human) interacts with the module providing the API (technology) to achieve his or her goals. As such, it is very much fair game for IxD practitioners and methods. Just this morning, in a job interview, I was asked how I would go about designing an API. I suspect that, in our world of mashups and small pieces loosely joined, this will soon become a common question for IxD's. Dmitry On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 11:25 AM, Pankaj Chawla <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:11:16, dave malouf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I also disagree with your assumption about computer | computer > > interactions. To me a conversation is a conversation and the IxD is > > best at creating conversations between any intelligent entities. > > silicon or carbon. > > > > What kind of Computer-Computer interactions are you talking about? For > me Computer-Computer interaction is interaction of software objects, > interaction of application software with the OS across the APIs, > interaction of OS with the hardware drivers wrapping the hardware and > interaction of drivers to the processor and memory and interaction of > processor down to bits and bytes. Are you saying an IxDer will be > better off doing all these interactions because each interaction can > be a conversation. I agree each interaction is a conversation but then > to have a conversation one needs to understand the language also. Will > an IxDer be able to talk the language of the OS and applications on > top of it? Not unless you include the OS API designers to be also > IxDers and if that is true then who isnt an IxDer because everybody > ultimately is designing an interaction at some level?? > > Thanks > Pankaj > > > ________________________________________________________________ > 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 > ________________________________________________________________ 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
