So, this is actually my first reply to this list, but I thought I'd jump in because this actually spawned a conversation here where I work.
Janne, I think your response hits the nail on the head. As we are heading into a more visual and all around higher fidelity world of interactions in software products (iPhone, Vista with WPF, Core Animation on the Mac, etc...), visual design skills are becoming more and more valuable for interaction designers - or whatever title you give yourself for being the person that "figures out the user interface." Certainly there are specializations as products grow complex (as someone pointed out with the game industry, which started out with a programmer doing EVERYTHING and now has full time people just making 3d props!). However, I believe cross discipline talents are key as we're navigating these new waters of interactions. Animations, graphic design, typography, general layout - all of these things are going to play key roles in establishing excellent experiences with software. Basically, a gigantic mixture of disciplines are coming together to form what we consider to be excell ent interactions. So, do you need to be a master of each discipline? Absolutely not. I hardly expect myself to be a master of animation. I've taken 2 animations classes in the past and I hope to never have to draw a walk animation cycle ever again. But I took the classes - and I have an understanding of the fundamentals and my work has improved because of it. In fact, the information I gleaned from all my "visual design" research and classes over the years has proven invaluable while creating interactive prototypes to design Uis that I'm working on. Of course, I've also made a point to learn programming (to a noooooobish level, I'll admit, but I only make prototypes), because that plays a role in the future as well. In a sense, I believe that interaction designers need to strive to be rennaissance computer nerds. Which, hey, that's the fun part, right?! We should count ourselves lucky. :) Basically, my point is that if you want to make great designs, I do believe you need to have somewhat of an understanding in the various disciplines involved. Visual design is one of those disciplines that can help immensely. Sure, sometimes you can have a situation where you have an interaction designer and a visual designer and they are completely separate. And sometimes that situation will produce a great product. But, I truly believe there would be far more synergy if that visual designer had some interaction design chops, as well as the interaction designer knowing a thing or two about visual design. And if that were the case, that great product just went from great to awesome. -Alan Dennis User Experience Designer TechSmith Corporation | www.TechSmith.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Janne Kaasalainen Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 4:15 AM To: IxDA list Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Can an interaction designer creat (great) interaction without (great) visual design skills? My gut feeling and experience is that an interaction designer should have a good understanding of the medium he's designing for, whether this is visual, physical, aural or something else. Visuals are a nice example case, though, so pardon me for concentrating on that for the rest of this reply. One of the issues with using just the wireframes is that some problems can extend to visual domain and vice versa. A solution to an interaction problem can be a visual design issue. A visual design issue can be solved via interaction. The separation of all parts of the systems (coding, visuals, interaction, marketing, etc.) seem to be artificial, to me at least, and mostly due to practical issues. The more you can break down the barriers, the easier design seems to become. To what level that can or should be done is another complex issue. However, all this also depends on the team, how it operates and what kind of people are in it. One can't be an expert in everything, of course, yet there needs to be understanding about the various aspects. Diversity can be a solution, but there are practical limits with that as well. Plus there are benefits of keeping teams small. Thus, imho, interaction designer should be able to be at least adequate in visual design (or applicable field) to be worth his salt. Regards, Janne Kaasalainen ________________________________________________________________ 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
