Carl Alviani, writer and editor at Ziba took some special time to talk over Skype with a small group of Human-Computer Interaction Design Master’s students at Indiana University in Bloomington. He a talk similar to that from Interaction’s 11 Conference in Boulder.
Wesley Michaels and I tracked him down in Boulder and asked if he would share his insights with our peers who couldn’t make it to the conference. His invitation was part of our semester long research and design project to improve the professional development resources for HCI Master’s students in the School of Informatics and Computing at IU.
Much of our community is struggling to communicate what we do and why it is important. Carl emphasized how important it is for us to tell stories that have characters and tangible examples. Otherwise, people will continue thinking we do magic, or do nothing. The best thing we can do is open a dialogue with people who don’t understand what we do and above all–thank them for being interested in the first place.
Major Points
- An example would be useful about now. Got a GPS device in front of you? Talk about it.
- Tell an “IxD at work” story that people can see.
- Don’t sweat the edge case. It’s ok to start by saying we make website or phone apps. Something like that is tangible and can open a dialogue.
- It is your job to shield the world from IxD’s internal debates.
- Start where the listener is. Think of your listeners as users. Then have a user-centered designed conversation. You know how to do that!
Q&A with students
- Is UX and IxD a buzzword? Not necessarily. A buzz word is when usage exceeds comprehension and maybe more people are using the word but don’t know what it means.
- The best work comes from identifying part of a project where you can have an impact.
- The industry will benefit as a whole from students coming from young programs. From schools will come more agreements on terminology and practice in the profession.
- It’s common and expected for interaction designers to inherit and learn new tools fast.
- There is a difference between user research and market research just as there is a difference between users and consumers. When designers engage in research they come out of their research transformed and empathetic.
- Getting excited about work is essential. You can begin to think, “do you have any idea of what this will mean to people!?” When you have a person in mind you can really talk about solutions and begin to solve them.
- Play well with others.
- People can be very creative. Even or especially non-designers. Let them know you realize that and draw on it. Be interested in them and make sure they know.
Carl, thank you so much!