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12 Chapter 1 What is interaction design?

Figure 1.5 An innovative
product developed by
IDEO: Scout Modo, a wire-
less handheld device deliv-
ering up-to-date
information about what's
going on in a city.

thousands of products for numerous clients, each time following their particular
brand of user-centered design (see Figure 1.5).

1.4 What is involved in the process of interaction design?

Essentially, the process of interaction design involves four basic activities:
1. Identifying needs and establishing requirements.
2. Developing alternative designs that meet those requirements.
3. Building interactive versions of the designs so that they can be communi-
cated and assessed.
4. Evaluating what is being built throughout the process.
These activities are intended to inform one another and to be repeated. For exam-
ple, measuring the usability of what has been built in terms of whether it is easy to
use provides feedback that certain changes must be made or that certain require-
ments have not yet been met.
Evaluating what has been built is very much at the heart of interaction design.
Its focus is on ensuring that the product is usable. It is usually addressed through a
user-centered approach to design, which, as the name suggests, seeks to involve
users throughout the design process. There are many different ways of achieving
this: for example, through observing users, talking to them, interviewing them, test-
ing them using performance tasks, modeling their performance, asking them to fill