The Art of Interactive Design – Chris Crawford

                Crawford’s conversation about interactivity being a new paradigm is very true even in today’s world. We are no longer in a world where it is the main paradigm to sit by and let others do as they wish. Finding out ways to interact with each other, and creating tools that streamline that interaction is more important than ever. Defining interactivity as the process of listening, thinking and speaking allows us to break down what are the important elements in the interfaces we create for human interaction. Better interfaces can allow for more streamlined communication between people as well as better interaction in general. Crawford ultimately bases his philosophy on basic human decency – a decency that is often hard to maintain. But if this philosophy permeated our world, maybe it will in turn start to permeate us? Could this be the road to a world full of understanding?

The Design of Everyday Things – Don Norman

                I think Norman is right in his general argument – designers should place a focus on the human experience and design should be explicitly understandable. However, I wonder how much of this is work that has to be put in by the people who will use these designs. Is it justified to make a very complicated tool that is hard to use, with the knowledge that once the user has understood how to use it it will become one of the most powerful tools in their arsenal? Can we expect designs to get more and more complicated as time goes on and people get better at understanding certain conventions? What does it take to establish a new convention in design? I suspect that introducing a new, difficult system to a person’s daily life is not an easy task, so then how do we allow our current designs to evolve beyond the capabilities of the common people?