This lecture introduces the Interaction Design discipline and its main challenges.

1. Introduction to
Interaction Design
Frederick van Amstel @fredvanamstel
Architecture and Design School - PUCPR
www.fredvanamstel.com

2. In the last two centuries, technology became more and
more entrenched in human life, specially after the
availability of mobile devices.
19th century 21st century

3. Chicken-and-egg question:
Does necessity creates technology
or
does technology creates necessity?

4. Both originate from
human desires
Captain Kirk Martin Cooper

5. Desire is volition without an object (Henri Lefebvre)

6. Design stimulate desires with objects that are feasible to
build and viable to push into the market (Tim Brown).

7. When the pleasure of using an object is socialized, it may
generate a socially agreeable need.

8. Cellphone models made by freelance
industrial designers at Motorola (1970s)
appealed to the desire of being modern.

9. For four decades, cellphones ignored fashion trends,
despite being used in public much like clothes.

10. After 2000, cellphone makers realized that they could
have some help from designers (Razr Dolce&Gabbana).

11. ''Most people make the mistake of
thinking design is what it looks
like. It's not just what it looks like
and feels like. Design is how it
works.''
Steve Jobs, Apple

12. What is that?

13. The iPhone made graphic user interfaces a socially
agreeable need.

14. Does the power of graphic
user interfaces comes from
information?

15. No. Its power comes from
interaction.

16. Interface ≠ Interaction

17. The interaction through Mercado Pago is the same for more
than 10 years.

18. The interfaces as well as the devices changed, but the
interaction remained the same.

19. Is it possible to design an
interaction?

20. The smartphone race game
• Unlock your phone
• Switch your phone with the person next to you
• Call your own number
• If you receive an incoming call, you lost
• Be a good loser: do not answer!!!

21. Interaction is a complex
emergent phenomenon.

22. Bird swarms are very complex.

23. Intelligent agents can flock like bird swarms (Boids
simulation - Craig Reynolds).

24. The basic rules of Boids Simulation.

25. Design is not a linear process
with determinate results.

26. Design is a dialectical process
Creation
Creation
Analysis/Synthesis
Analysis/Synthesis
Analysis/Synthesis
Creation

27. Seeing an object as it is. (certainty,
righteously, closed)
X
Seeing an object as it could be.
(uncertainty, ambiguity, open)
The crux of the dialectics

28. Working with possibilities
Research
Prototyping
Ideation Sketching

29. Interaction ideation
Futures of Curitiba
PUCPR

30. Interaction research
Futures of Curitiba
PUCPR

31. Interaction sketching
Apple Developer Academy
PUCPR

32. Interaction prototyping
Apple Developer Academy
PUCPR

33. Interaction idealized by design
user user userdesigner
interaction
interface
system

34. Interaction in practice
hacker user userdesigner
interface
unexpected
interaction
breakdown
system

35. This is idealistic interaction design (pedestrian chicane).

36. This is pragmatic interaction design (Centraal Beheer,
Herman Hertberger).

37. Centraal Beheer was designed for functional flexibility as
well as interior design variety.

38. Interaction is an intangible design material. It is hard to
grasp and it resists manipulation.

39. The resistance displayed by the
interaction material comes from
people’s capacity to act in their
own way (agency).

40. Interaction design must deal with contradictions.

41. Voxel, a digital assistant that both prevent and stimulate
procrastination (Juliana Saito, 2016).

42. Enigmatron, an analog synthesizer based on digital signals
(Diogo Mattana, 2016).

43. Thank you!
Frederick van Amstel @fredvanamstel
Architecture and Design School - PUCPR
www.fredvanamstel.com