Killing me softly

Not that I want to make my readers believe that I’m having a bad day, the sun is shining, the tulips and tank tops are out… but general statements that influence the way my field is perceived on the market tend to make me react very strongly…

I’m sure Tony Dunne didn’t necessarily intend it to sound that way but claiming that “The name interaction design is beginning to mean something quite specialised and focused on designing interfaces for electronic and digital products and systems. This is probably a very good thing if you are trying to establish a discipline or a group within a company, but it’s not so good if you are interested in pushing boundaries and exploring new ways designers can make technology relevant and meaningful to everyday life.” is a convenient way to ignore the past educational institutions or the legacies of the former RCA teachers like Durrell Bishop.

The fact is that from the beginning of this very young industry, interaction design has ALWAYS been considered associated very closely to HCI and interface design for on-screen applications because the field itself was born out of those particular departments be it on an industry or an academic level. Since the advent of schools like Umea, the RCA’s program for the past 10 years, IDII and now also a number of other european endeavors, this change has already been made on an academic level, unfortunately and this is something that I encounter working as a freelance, that change has not been operating at an industry level yet. And I hardly believe that changing the name of a program will help that change along, I think it just might confuse people more. Imagine this conversation:

A. So what do you do?
B. I design interactions.
A. Oh you’re an interaction designer?
B. Uh, well not quite, I design interactions, it’s different…
A. How so?
B. …

It will still be as difficult for people like me to answer the dreaded question (what do you do) as for future students of the RCA.