Kevin Conlon! What a great surprise to see you here! Great thread.
There are really so many venues to learn interaction design, and interaction is really about psychology of the user in a context. For computer interfaces, on a generic level, HCI addresses this. When we look for hires in the IA/IxD area, we're interested in the standard cadre of education, experience, and examples of work. We're in Pittsburgh, and some measure of CMU grads throw resumes our direction. Their work is usually engaging for me, often pushes some envelope or another, but all too often lives in too broad of a swath of the gulf of expectations than can support the big world of users. Personally, I tend to look for MLIS, cognitive psychology, or linguistics backgrounds, where the candidate has a coexisting obsession with craft. These folks tend to have strong structural skills, high curiosity, fewer preconceptions about what's cool, and are driven to make things work for users. I came to Pittsburgh to help start a web design program, a venture about which I was excited at the time. My experience there changed my perspective dramatically though. Whereas I used to think that web design needed academic programs designed to support it as a discrete discipline, I now think that's an approach that's likely doomed to produce myopic web designers and me-too solutions for a realm that's driven by variables far outside the normal range of what's taught in these programs. Kevin's a great source, by the way, of information on where the good programs actually exist. And I agree wholeheartedly with his initial reply. I'm an artist-turned-extreme-user-advocate though. I love cool technology - in service of user experience. I'd love to know more about the programs you're considering. Geoff Barnes ________________________________________________________________ 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
