Balancing the Practical and the Possible when Teaching Interaction Design
Connecting Dots, AIGA Design Educator’s Conference. Cincinnati, OH. March 2014. Presenter of paper and case studies with Rebecca Tegtmeyer.
Abstract
In Paola Antonelli’s article, States of Design 04: Critical Design, she discusses where the term ‘Critical Design’ originated. Giving credit to Anthony Dunne (of Dunne and Raby), Antonelli explains that ‘critical design’ is not concerned with creating immediately useful objects, but rather sparking ideas and potential for future artifacts and experiences. “To do this,” explains Dunne and Raby, “we need to move beyond designing for the way things are now and begin to design for how things could be, imagining alternative possibilities and different ways of being, and giving tangible form to new values and priorities.”
As interaction design educators, who chose to prioritize creating the conditions for meaningful — and new — user experiences, ‘critical design’ helps to further free us from the confines of what students know how to develop. When students focus on what they know how to make, the results are often stagnant, expected and dull. Students get hung up with the increasingly complex development and ignore the most important issue — the people. To prepare students for a design profession that is rapidly changing, it is most imperative to encourage students to speculate wildly and comprehensively research when designing interactive experiences. They should design for 5 to 10 years out, not now. But, when designing in such speculative ways, how can students be prepared to enter the workforce and hit the ground running?
During our presentation, we will explore this dichotomy, and share examples of student work; ranging from beginning process to final artifacts. How do we prepare students to think wildly, conceive of new modes of user interaction, and focus on meaningful user experiences while also preparing them for entry level positions?
Presentation
So, to begin, what do we mean by practical and possible?
What we’ve experienced is that when students focus on what they know how to develop, the results are often stagnant, expected and dull. Students get hung up with the increasingly complex development and ignore the most important issue — the people. To prepare students for a design profession that is rapidly changing, it is most imperative to encourage students to speculate wildly and comprehensively research when designing interactive experiences. They should design for five to ten years out, not now.
We believe that privileging the soft skills, exploring the speculative, and allowing for the “what ifs” in the approach to teaching interaction design can happen in many ways and in many contexts. We believe that it is possible to balance the practical and the possible and the results are students who are prepared to be thought leaders and life-long learners — students who can work to move our industry forward into exciting new territory.
