Alan Cooper访谈录 - Part 1 : Defining Interaction Design

I. Introduction

Back around New Year 2000, I was considering how best to replace the Book Reviews at uidesign.net. It seemed that rather than analyse what the authors had to say, it might be better to ask the authors directly - Interviews. So I was left with the next big question, "Who do you ask to do the first Interview?". The new site branding and slogan, "The Webzine for Interaction Designers" provided the answer. It had to be Alan Cooper. As author of two excellent books, "About Face" and last year's "The Inmates are Running the Asylum" he is the founding father of Interaction Design and perhaps its greatest advocate. To my surprise he said yes about a month later. The eventual result was an 80 minute phone call on Friday 11th February.

You don't so much interview Alan Cooper as the whole Cooper Interaction Design media machine. All the questions were submitted in advance for approval. It was to my surprise then that we strayed off the script right at the beginning and never quite regained the plot. The result was a fascinating 80 minutes of conversation which did much to help define what uidesign.net is all about and to lay out the road map for areas that Interaction Design needs to address. In part 1, Alan takes his time to explain exactly what he means by Interaction Design and why it isn't Interface Design and exactly what role Interaction Design plays in the whole gambit of User Centered Design disciplines.

Before the interview started I really thought I had some chance of holding my own with Alan Cooper. I thought I knew a bit about Interaction Design and I could ask some intelligent questions. We had a good script and we had an hour of his time. However, what was intended to be an Interview immediately became an audience with the master. It became difficult to slide in the questions as Cooper began to tear up the rulebook for the technology industry and throw it out. He discusses why Interaction Design is about complete systems architecture and he hits on what's wrong with relational databases; what's wrong with file systems; why Interaction Design is a lot more than Interface Design; and why he really doesn't like Usability much either.

We kicked off with an introduction to uidesign.net and a discussion of the audience and the message...