What is Interaction Design?

Interaction design, also known as interaction design (IxD or IaD), is the field of designing the behavior of man-made systems. Artifacts, i.e., man-made objects, such as softwares, mobility devices, man-made environments, services, wearable devices, and the organizational structure of a system. Interaction design is concerned with defining interfaces that relate to the "interaction" of an artifact's behavior (i.e., the way the artifact reacts in a given scenario).

Interaction designers first conduct user research related to the field, as well as potential users, to design the behavior of artifacts, and evaluate the design quality in terms of usefulness, usability and emotional factors (usefulness, usability and emotional).

Interaction design is unavoidable in the design and production of any artifact, the difference being between the conscious and the unconscious. However, as products and user experiences become more complex and functional, and as new artifacts continue to emerge and create more cognitive friction for users, the need for interaction design is becoming more and more apparent, triggering a call for it to be recognized as a separate design discipline in theory and practice.

However, because researchers and practitioners of interaction design come from different fields, and because the field itself is still in the process of being established, there is often a lack of understanding of certain issues, and there may even be different and conflicting understandings of similar and identical problems and solutions to the problems themselves. For example, what the basic elements of interaction design include is still under discussion.

But there are still some non-contradictory ****understandings, for example, that interaction design is a dialog between designers and objects, and that the essence of interaction design research and practice may be hidden in this dialog. The aims of interaction design include the design and improvement of usefulness, ease of use and attractiveness.

Particularly in the digital age, multimedia has diversified the study of interaction design, and multidisciplinary analysis has enriched the theory of interaction design. Nowadays, more and more products based on interactive design have been put into the market, and many new products have also absorbed a lot of interactive design theories.