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Interview 71

exposure. It is not the kind of thing you can set YR: Are there any classic case studies that stand out
down easily as, say, you can scientific formulas. A as good exemplars of interaction design?
lot of design tends to be methodological. It is not TW: You need to understand what has been impor-
about the design per se but is more about how you tant in the past. I still use the Xerox Star as an exem-
go about doing design, in particular, knowing what plar because so much of what we use today was there.
are the appropriate steps to take and how you put When you go back to look at the Star you see it in the
them together. context of when it was first created. I also think some
exemplars that are very interesting are ones that never
YR: How do you see the field of interaction design actually succeeded commercially. For example, I use
taking on board the current explosion in new tech- the PenPoint system that was developed for pen com-
nologies-for example mobile, ubiquitous, infrared, puters by Go. Again, they were thinking fresh. They
and so on? Is it different, say, from 20 years ago when set out to do something different and they were much
it was just about designing software applications to sit more conscious of the design issues than somebody
on the desktop? who was simply adapting the next version of something
TW: I think a real change in people's thinking has that already existed. Palmpilot is another good exam-
been to move from interface design to interaction de- ple, because they looked at the problem in a different
sign. This has been pushed by the fact that we do have way to make something work. Another interesting ex-
all kinds of devices nowadays. Interface design used emplar, which other people may not agree with, is Mi-
to mean graphical interfaces, which meant designing crosoft Bob--not because it was a successful program,
menus and other widgets. But now when you're talk- because it wasn't, but because it was a first exploration
ing about handheld devices, gesture interfaces, tele- of a certain style of interaction, using animated agents.
phone interfaces and so on, it is clear that you can't You can see very clearly from these exemplars what
focus just on the widgets. The widgets may be part of design trade-offs the designers were making and why
any one of these devices but the design thinking as a and then you can look at the consequences.
whole has to focus on the interaction.
YR: Finally, what are the biggest challenges facing
YR: What advice would you give to a student coming people working in this area?
into the field on what they should be learning and TW: I think one of the biggest challenges is what
looking for? Pelle Ehn calls the dialectic between tradition and
TW: I think a student who wants to learn this field transcendence. That is, people work and live in cer-
should think of it as a kind of dual process, that is tain ways already, and they understand how to adapt
what Donald Schon calls "reflection in action," that within a small range, but they don't have an un-
needing both the action and the reflection. It is im- derstanding or a feel for what it would mean to make
portant to have experience with trying to build a radical change, for example, to change their way of
things. That experience can be from outside work, doing business on the Internet before it was around,
projects, and courses where you are actually en- or to change their way of writing from pen and paper
gaged in making something work. At the same time when word processors weren't around. I think what
you need to be able to step back and look at it not as the designer is trying to do is envision things for users
"What do I need to do next?" but from the perspec- that the users can't yet envision. The hard part is not
tive of what you are doing and how that fits into the fixing little problems, but designing things that are
larger picture. both innovative and that work.