From the course: Planning a Career in User Experience

Interaction design

From the course: Planning a Career in User Experience

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Interaction design

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- Interaction design, also abbreviated as IxDA, and sometimes referred to as UX design, is perhaps the most core design-related UX career. An interaction designer is focused largely on how best to create efficient and effective interactions between users and an interface. These interactions could happen within screen, between screens, or beyond a screen. As an interaction designer, you may sketch out screen-based interactions or even interactions beyond the screen with a pencil or on a whiteboard, and then iterate those screens and interactions based on real-time input from a team of stakeholders. You may also sketch out screens and create static mockups by using software. You may create interactive wire frames or clickable prototypes that let stakeholders or clients click through and experience a basic level of interactivity, and you may use some basic web coding knowledge too. Whether static mockups or interactive wire frames, when designing for the web, you'll be focusing on screen elements that could include where text would go, what buttons and functionality will be present, how menus will be placed, and how headers and footers will be structured. Sometimes you'll zoom in on a particular aspect of the screen and devote your visualization to what kind of interactivity is going on within that element. Whereas wire frames may show the pathway from screen to screen or changes within a screen, an interactive prototype will essentially simulate real functionality before a developer spends the time or energy to fully wire things up with code. In addition to visual representation through mockups, wire frames, and prototypes, you'll also be documenting with words. You'll annotate your visual representations and likely provide supplemental documentation. You'll be a communicator of the design and an advocate for users. You'll help the team to see beyond the business goals, toward understanding how the creation of the product is going to ultimately impact the product users. It's possible that you may be asked to do some user research as well. While this can make sense, particularly if there's no dedicated user researcher on staff, you'll also have to be cautious about your objectivity when asked to evaluate your own designs with representative users. I've seen designers display unintentional body language while conducting research on their designs, such as a subtle head nod when a user is considering multiple paths, and mentions the possibility of taking the one that the designer constructed as the correct path. While it would not be surprising for an interaction design job description to include basic web coding, and having a general understanding of technological platforms will likely be useful to your job, beware of interaction design descriptions that start to talk about heavy-duty development knowledge. While it is certainly possible that a developer uses interaction design skills, being an interaction designer does not mean that you're a coder. If you're interested in learning more about interaction design, check out my list of good links and books in the Exercise Files Companion Website document, as well as by searching LinkedIn Learning for courses on these topics.

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