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32 Chapter 1 What is interaction design?

Figure 1 Steelcase Worklife New York retail showroom. One of the projects Gitta Salomon was involved in
was to develop an interactive sales showroom for the company called Steelcase, based in New York. The sales
environment was developed to provide various sales tools, including an interactive device allowing salespeople
to access case-study videos that can be projected onto the large screens in the background.

often name the things that we all need to be talking YR. So this communication process is just as impor-
about. Then at least we all have a common termi- tant as the ideas?
nology to discuss things. It is a measure of our suc- GS: 1 think it is, a lot of times.
cess if they start using the words that we gave them,
because we truly have influenced their thinking. A y~, so, how do you start with a client?
lot of times we'll give them a diagram of what their
GS: For clients who already have something built, I
system is like, because nobody has ever visualized
find that usually the best way for us to get started, is
it. We serve as the visualizers, taking a random as-
to begin with the client doing a comprehensive demo
sortment of vaguely defined concepts and giving
of their product for us. We will usually spend a whole
some shape to them. We'll make an artifact, which
day collecting information. Besides the demo, they
allows them to say "Yes, it is like that" or "No, it's
tell us about their target market, competitors, and a
not like that, it's like this. . . ." Without something
whole range of things. It then takes a longer period of
to point to they couldn't even say to each other
time for us to use the product and observe other peo-
"No, that is not what 1 mean" because they didn't
know if they were talking about the same thing. ple using it to get a much broader picture. Because
the client's own vision of their product is so narrow,
Many times we'll use schematic diagrams to repre-
sent system behavior. Once they have these dia- we really have to step back from what they initially
.--
grams then they can say "Oh no, we need all this tell Ub.
other stuff in there, we forgot to tell you." It seems to
that nobody is writing complete lists of functional- YR: So do you write notes, and t hen try and put it -
ether
ity, requirements specifications, or complete docu- g afterwards, Orwhat?
mentation anymore. This means the product ideas GS: We use all kinds of things. We use notes and
stay in somebody's head until we make them tangi- video, and we sit around with tracing paper and
ble through visualization. marker pens. When reviewing the materials, 1 often