Thesis proposal draft as a letter to Katie
The title says it all. I thought this would help me get my thoughts and ideas out more simply and in a way that was more focused on clarity, since I would be explaining it to a non-designer.
Dear Katie,
As you may or may not know, the field of interaction design is exploding. Or, at least companies are considering a designer in general and essential part of any team. We can see that companies’ attentions have turn towards the field of design. For example, this year IBM was making a big push to hire 2,000 designers and General Electric launched their first ever User Experience Division of their Software Leadership Program this year. My opinion, which is not really backed up by anything but my own experience is that, since we’re spending so much of our time online and in front of screens now, there is a real need to make those experiences as unique and branded as physical products since there is nothing else a customer will see. Companies are driven to make these interactions meaningful. For example, companies like Oxo go about refining products like kitchen utensils to make them easier to use when the functioned fine before. Or consider the craft a graphic designer might put into printing a poster: picking the right paper, matching colors, and making sure the proportions came out the way they wanted—all after they’ve already spent hours making sure the visual design itself is correct. These designers are making a distinction between simply performing the task and in creating a preferred method of completing a task. Digital products have been creating more meaningful experiences in the same way by increasing the quality of the design and the way that information is delivered to people—the way an interface interacts with viewers matters and goes into consideration as the evaluate the entire product. By that, I mean the micro-interactions: everything from how the screens load, the transition between pages, and even how a button is clicked.