For a while now, when people ask me about being an interaction designer, I have explained it as designing for behavior: what, how, and why someone interacts with a product, service, or organization. As an interaction designer, I tread in the land of emotion, motivation, action, need, and desire. Like design itself, there need not be a limit to which this approach may be applied. However, not everyone sees interaction design in this way.

While I did not go to this year’s IxDA conference, I was glad to hear the dialogue about what is interaction design kicked up again by Robert Fabricant’s keynote, wherein he stated interaction design is not about computing technology, it’s about behavior. Given my perspective on interaction design, this is not a surprise to me. What is surprising is people feeling that this is wrong.

What’s even more surprising is that what Robert said is nothing new or shocking. In Designing for Interaction, arguably the most accessible book on interaction design, Dan Saffer says, in the very first chapter, “interaction desing is about behavior.” And that was way back in 2006!

Notwithstanding, there are areas of focus for interaction design, and there is overlap with other design disciplines. But I totally agree with Dan and Robert, interaction is about behavior. And it has nothing inherently to do with making wireframes, interfaces, websites, or computing technology. Why this is new or shocking, I don’t know. But if the assertion miffs enough people in the community to cause a stir, then we need to have a talk and sort it out. Because believing interaction design is about computing technology is not healthy for the future of interaction design.

Last week I had a chat with Jeff Howard, during which I described the presentations at the Service Design Network conference in November. My observation from the conference is that service designers seem to know what service design looks like. The process shown during the presentations looked very similar. This prompted Jeff to suggest that process is no longer a differentiator.

I’ve been pondering this statement since then. How true is it? And what could that mean? The design process has received a lot of attention over the past few years in part due to the push of user-centered design and a focus on experience over features. The best design firms rely on a strong design process that implements various methods. For the most part, methods are known, but flexible enough for variation. A lot of design education, whether it’s in the classroom, a conference presentation, or workshop, focuses on teaching process and methods. Even in the realm of business, design methods have been adopted to incite innovation.

The design process and methods are not very difficult to learn. For those who want to learn them and for design firms that believe them, there is not much room to grow in the process arena. Sure, new methods are created all the time. But I don’t think they revolutionize the process as a whole.

So that leaves us with all good design firms using a similar process with similar methods. How then do you differentiate? Or what is it that actually differentiates one design firm, or one designer, from another, especially if they have a similar focus, like service design?

While there are several ways to answer this question, one I find interesting is the culture and values that a designer or a design firm possesses. These forces affect the thinking during the design process and the making that results. But they don’t receive a lot of attention. Understanding the role those forces play in design process could be a way of articulating value and differentiation when the landscape of process execution looks the same.

I think it would be really interesting to hear design teams talk about how their culture and values influenced the decisions made during the design process that led to the chosen solution. Perhaps less how and more why.

Are you a designer who checks Twitter incessantly (or at least occasionally) and also wants daily insights into the thoughts and desires of the people who use the products and services you design for? Then perhaps you should start following your users on Twitter.

As a still relatively new Nokia designer, and having little experience with Nokia products and services previously, that’s exactly what I’ve started doing. I found, Mark Guim, a 25-year-old, self-described Nokia fanboy who currently resides in New York as he pursues a second bachelor’s in nursing. He has a Twitter feed and also is the editor of The Nokia Blog. I started following him on Twitter about a month ago, and have really been tickled by how much I’m learning about his feelings about Nokia’s products, from technical features to experience.

“after a week with Nokia E71, I’m back to N85. Love the qwerty but damn pics and videos come out purple.” -thenokiablog, 9:07 AM Dec 31st, 2008

Seeking out your users online isn’t a new idea, even on Twitter. Increasingly, marketing folks from the products and services I use (and likely complain about: hi Comcast!) have started following their customers on Twitter, which is great I’m sure for spotting trends, damage control, and promotions. But if Comcast follows me, they get mostly nothing about how I feel about Comcast services (though it might be good if they paid attention to all the user-centered design stuff).

Conversely, Mark broadcasts his feelings and day-in-the-life interactions with the Nokia products he uses in a way that most designers only dream of when putting together journals and other reporting paraphrenia for design research. It also feels a lot like another design research activity: shadowing. Not only do I get Mark’s thoughts, but also his interactions with other Nokia users who interact with him.

“interesting points from commenter: ‘Nokia N97 is no where near revolutionary enough to wait 6 months for’ http://is.gd/dQFD“-thenokiablog, 10:14 AM Dec 28th, 2008

Could Twitter or blog shadowing become a new design method? I’m curious if other designers are using Twitter or other services as a means to gain user insights by following specific people’s online publishing and behavior. And while I haven’t done it, I wonder what it would be like to start mapping the insights and really using them in future projects.

Want to figure out the personality of your blog? Check out Typealyzer. My writing on this blog comes out as ENTJ. There’s also a nifty visualization of the parts of the brain active during writing.

ENTJ - The Executives

The direct and assertive type. They are especially attuned to the big picture and how to get things done. They are talented strategic planners, but might come off as insensitive to others needs and appear arrogant. They like to be where the action is and like making bold and sweeping changes in complex situations.

The Executives are happy when their work let them learn and improve themselves and how things work around them. Not beeing very shy about expressing their ideas and often very outgoing they often make excellent public speakers.

Conversely, last year at Adaptive Path, I was encouraged to take Jung Typology test. I took the test twice, each resulting in ENFP (see I am an ENFP).

Last month, the Nokia Design San Francisco office started Design Thursdays, a monthly event every first Thursday to allow Nokia designers in the Bay area to get together and share projects and presentations. During the first Design Thursday, Raphael Grignani, my manager, presented Homegrown, a project to envision sustainable, ethical, and desirable communication solutions for Nokia.

Today, we were given a challenge rather than a presentation: with a bag of spaghetti and a roll of duct tape, build a structure that extends from a table. Prizes were awarded to the greatest horizontal reach and the best aesthetics.

Our team won the horizontal category, with 58 inches. I highly recommend you try this at home.

We are looking for presenters for future Design Thursdays. All interesting projects and people are welcome.