People, Interaction & Interface Design
How hard is this concept to understand – people and how we work in our multi-various ways with our psychological quirks, passions and foibles, are the most necessary force at work in interface design. This is because people and how we operate, bring a direct friction upon the interaction paradigm utilised by an interface. People use interfaces, but interfaces do not use people.
First, I wonder what is so difficult – even for large software companies – to absorb in that assertion. Start with the people who will use your product, learn about them, discover their foibles, their worldview, and attempt to – dare I suggest – design a solution that bridges the gap between their ceiling of understanding and the complexity of the problem they are attempting to overcome. Interfaces are not isolated islands of randomly placed programmer displayed functionality.
This kind of makes me a little mad because your interface design is invaluable to your business model. If we can use your interface we’ll do business with you and you’ll make money. Right? Otherwise, we’ll go somewhere else and do business with those guys. It makes sense. So why aren’t we investing in interface designers? Why aren’t we acknowledging accessibility expertise and usability expertise and the sciences behind human computer interaction? No a website isn’t just a website, and graphic design alone is not going to make your business improve its bottom line.
Interaction designers and interface designers worth their salt are fostered and nurtured and absorb a tome of invaluable material that seems often to be brushed aside. I’ve not only seen it in the workplace, its obvious in many top of the line commercial applications. Love your interface designer – employ, nurture and coddle them. They’re money in the bank.
