One List to Rule Them All
Last weekend I got coffee with a businessperson who was looking to move into interaction design. Shocking, I know, but also a good sign.
He asked for a good resources to get started. In the past I’ve given people an extensive list of books, articles, websites, etc. This time I tried to go simple — a couple of articles that give good advice:
So You Want to Be An Interaction Designer (cooper.com)
Notes for job seekers in UI Design and Computer Science (uiweb.com)
Both the Cooper archive and UIWeb archive have a fairly comprehensive set of articles. Along with Boxes and Arrows, that’s a solid set to start with.
As far as a collection of resources go, I’m really impressed by Dey Alexander’s collection. If I could only recommend one list, this is that list.
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I’ve got one beef with Robert (the cooper.com article)- I actually wrote a paper on it two years ago.
Hence my own self-proclaimed title of “Interaction Developer.” I know, the UX world doesn’t need any more divisions, but I just think if you’re going to prototype- if you’re going to actually understand what can and can’t be accomplished, and what the tradeoffs are, you gotta be at least partially immersed in the code…
I don’t think any good designer would argue about the importance of knowing what your medium can and can’t do. I’m guessing you and Robert are in agreement on that one. But do you think the ability to code anything extensive (beyond markup languages, tweaking scripts and creating basic prototypes) is a core attribute necessary to be an accomplished interaction designer?
There is a role for people bridge the gap between designing and building products. UI Engineers and prototyping specialists exist in many companies – is “Interaction Developer” any different?
So, I’ve noticed job postings and recruiters lately looking for “UI developers”, including at my current workplace. Turns out these are legitimately needed professionals who are CS-educated programmers that know how to code a software interface, usually trained in Java Swing or eclipse SWT and other API’s and toolkits, etc. But they have NO DESIGN EDUCATION (beyond point line plane); but serving as the programmatic executors of a user experience vision that a UI designer provides.
In contrast, there are programmers who focus exclusively on “non-UI” software featuring only back-end, run-time execution of invisible processes and data nobody actually “sees” except in some monitoring console. (this is actually the heritage of the company i’m currently at…likely alot of other places too).
Just FYI…
probably not, but prototyping specialist sure doesn’t sound as cool.
Chad! Did you learn nothing in your time here in Pittsburgh? He wants to be an interaction designer and you gave him some articles from Cooper and uiweb?
Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
You tell him I said to take a long unstructured walk around his city. Talk to strangers. Take pictures. Visit at least one museum. Pretend like he’s from somewhere else for an hour. Stop in a park to read Raymond Carver’s “What we talk about when we talk about love.” (outloud would be rad, but I leave that up to him.) Go into a music store, find two people who seem completely different from him and buy whatever they are buying. And then end his travels at your house where he’ll tell you the story of his day over a bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin. The story should last as long as the bottle.
You listen to his story and then like Mr. Miyagi in “The Karate Kid” tell him all the things he already knows interaction design without even realizing it.
And to answer the question before you ask – why Bombay Sapphire Gin? Gin because it’s yummy. Bombay Sapphire because it’s beautiful. We’re still designers after all. ;)
Thanks Chad for mentioning my collection. I’m glad you found it useful enough to recommend it to others.
Cheers,
Dey