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168 Chapter 6 The process of interaction design

link to
address book

i
links always
available

link to turn to
notes section next page
Figure 6.1 An outline sketch of an electronic calendar.

has a strong resemblance to a paper-based book, yet I've also tried to incorporate electronic
capabilities. Maybe once I have evaluated this design and ensured that the tasks I want to
perform are supported, then I will be more receptive to changing the look away from a
paper-based "look and feel."
The exact steps taken to produce a product will vary from designer to designer, from
product to product, and from organization to organization. In this activity, you may have
started by thinking about what you'd like such a system to do for you, or you may have been
thinking about an existing paper calendar. You may have mixed together features of differ-
ent systems or other record-keeping support. Having got or arrived at an idea of what you
wanted, maybe you then imagined what it might look like, either through sketching with
paper and pencil or in your mind.

6.2.1 Four basic activities of interaction design
Four basic activities for interaction design were introduced in Chapter 1, some of
which you will have engaged in when doing Activity 6.1. These are: identifying
needs and establishing requirements, developing alternative designs that meet
those requirements, building interactive versions so that they can be communicated
and assessed, and evaluating them, i.e., measuring their acceptability. They are
fairly generic activities and can be found in other designs disciplines too. For exam-
ple, in architectural design (RIBA, 1988) basic requirements are established in a
work stage called "inception", alternative design options are considered in a "feasi-
bility" stage and "the brief" is developed through outline proposals and scheme de-