"What are some of the non-software things that you all see interaction designers doing? ... I'm looking for specifics situations where what you think of as interaction design is being done that is not related to software."
Here's a few examples: Robert Fabricant gave an excellent keynote at IxD09 describing an HIV-testing kit for men in Africa, applying behavioral & interaction design principles. That surely wasn't software. Marc Rettig likewise described extensively a project for dealing with sleep apnea and related sleeping disorders, applying interaction design methods and values, coming up with some solutions to help sufferers in a humane way. That wasn't software by a longshot. 2nd Road led by Tony-Golsby Smith in Sydney does extensive service and business process design work, working with insurance companies and banks in Sydney. They even tackled the Australian Tax Code (not a website, mind you, the actual tax code, working with their finance ministers, along with Dick Buchanan/CMU) and even a side project dealing with Aboriginal reconciliation policies/processes. I met folks in Wellington NZ Inland Revenue Office doing the same things, applying IxD methods and artifacts to re-design their tax collection system (both digital and offline). Live / Work is known in the UK for doing extensive service design projects outside typical software problems. Carl diSalvo, recent PhD Interaction Design recipient at CMU is focused on robotics, not software. These are just some examples off top of my head in real-time. I created a poster on flickr (http://tinyurl.com/d5kprk) itemizing various domains of problems where interaction design can be applied, outside software. While I agree that ultimately alot of these projects do eventually become "digital" in some form (website, mobile app, installable app, since we are in the digital era) they still involve up-front distinctly non-software problems, thereby demonstrating IxD foremost as a perspective and conceptual toolkit agnostic to any particular technology. Hope this helps! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=40553 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
