It's an interesting question, and one I've been thinking about myself a fair bit lately.
I currently am employed at a post-secondary institution, as a member of a curriculum development group. For our instructional designers, much of their work is spent developing the Outcomes and Objectives for courses/programs (with input from SMEs, driven by industry requirements), and then determining what course materials (assessments, module content, and media pieces) should go where. At this time, I do not believe the IDs are engaged in doing research with students (much to some of our IDs dismay), but rather relying on best practices and research done elsewhere. Once the IDs have determined where they want an activity or learning object, and of what type (drag-and-drop matching? crossword puzzle? interactive simulation? etc.) in consultation with the SME, the project is handed over to a Media Developer (either a graphic artist or programmer) to design, implement and build. In our situation, we do not really do any formal "interaction design"; we typically build pieces to whatever looks good to the developer in question. A few of us are working towards being able to perform research with our students, to ensure that the media pieces we build are solid from an IxD perspective, but we're not quite there yet :-) That being said, the reason I have been thinking about the relationship between IDs and IxDs is because I've been turning over in my mind what the role of IxD would be in an environment like ours. Is it the role of the ID to do the IxD? I don't think so. As I see it, the IDs on our team are fantastic at planning and structuring the course, its materials, assessments, outcomes and objectives in a way that is pedagogically sound and beneficial for the student. My fellow media developers then build whatever the IDs and SMEs believe will be beneficial to the student. But there is also a role for IxD -- the translation of the IDs idea into a workable, usable, and ultimately user-friendly media piece. I believe that in this type of environment, the role of the interaction designer is really a "student/user experience advocate" -- working to ensure that the students receive the benefit of the instructional design which has come before. The last thing we should want is for our students to have to learn a difficult interface before they can learn a difficult concept. And that's the problem that IxD can solve, that I don't think that IDs really can (or would want to). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=43988 ________________________________________________________________ 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
