Interaction Design - Related Disciplines

Related Disciplines

Industrial design

The core principles of industrial design overlap with those of interaction design. Industrial designers use their knowledge of physical form, color, aesthetics, human perception and desire, usability to create a fit of an object with the person using it.

Human factors and ergonomics

Certain basic principles of ergonomics provide grounding for interaction design. These include anthropometry, biomechanics, kinesiology, physiology and psychology as they relate to human behavior in the built environment.

Cognitive psychology

Certain basic principles of cognitive psychology provide grounding for interaction design. These include mental models, mapping, interface metaphors, and affordances. Many of these are laid out in Donald Norman's influential book The Design of Everyday Things.

Human–computer interaction

Academic research in human–computer interaction (HCI) includes methods for describing and testing the usability of interacting with an interface, such as cognitive dimensions and the cognitive walkthrough.

Design research

Interaction designers are typically informed through iterative cycles of user research. User research is used to identify the needs, motivations and behavior of end users. They design with an emphasis on user goals and experience, and evaluate designs in terms of usability and affective influence.

Architecture

As interaction designers increasingly deal with ubiquitous computing and urban computing, the architects' ability to make, place, and create context becomes a point of contact between the disciplines.

User interface design

Like user interface design and experience design, interaction design is often associated with the design of system interfaces in a variety of media but concentrates on the aspects of the interface that define and present its behavior over time, with a focus on developing the system to respond to the user's experience and not the other way around.