Perspectives on interaction design by Yvonne Rogers, Helen Sharp, and Jennifer J. Preece

Abstract

Yvonne Rogers, Jenny Preece, and Helen Sharp recently published their new textbook on interaction design ( Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction , John Wiley & Sons, www.wiley.com/college/preece), a thorough and interesting treatment of a broad subject. Curious, I asked them a few questions about their perspectives. Here are their answers, and we encourage you to pick up their new book and see what questions you, too, might have. EADE: For what audience have you written your new book? JENNY: Our book is written for undergraduate and master's students; practitioners will find it useful too. It also provides Ph.D. students with a good grounding in the theory and practice of HCI and interaction design. We've pointed out areas where further research is needed which we hope Ph.D. students will be challenged to tackle. HELEN: The three of us have backgrounds in different subject areas and, therefore, different perspectives on interaction design. Our book provides a view of the subject that will be accessible to students from a number of disciplines, including cognitive psychology, computer science, and information systems. Parts of the book are also appropriate for practitioners including Web designers and usability professionals. The preface gives some suggested routes through the text to accommodate different courses that may use the book. YVONNE: Some books take a commercial product development and practice approach to HCI-interaction design. While there is a need for this kind of textbook, especially for students who are training to be practitioners, we chose to take a more academic view of the field, targeting undergraduates and graduates doing courses in computer science, psychology, human-computer interaction, and information systems. Hence, we cover the development of HCI and the design and evaluation methods that have evolved, how they came about, and how they are used. For example, we include a section on GOMS [Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection Rules] and the keystroke technique, even though we know it is not widely used in practice. We include it because we know that a number of researchers and professors think highly of the method and continue to teach and use it themselves; getting students to understand its strengths and weaknesses is also instructive. We chose to describe unconventional methods like Bill Gaver's cultural probes, which would not be taken seriously in practice but which are useful in certain circumstances and are great for doing research. In sum, we tried to give an overview of what is currently happening in the field of HCI rather than focusing on the practice of interaction design in the commercial world. It would be great if someone wrote a book about the fallacies and pitfalls of HCI, but I am not sure anyone would have the nerve to write it. A lot of debate about methods and practice is currently best done in the classroom rather than in a standard textbook. EADE: The goals of any interaction design problem are contextually defined, and students need to know that there is no holy grail of objectives for every design effort. How do you write a book to instruct on the topic of interaction design?