Tomorrow we are required to turn in a two-page, single-spaced essay answering the question What Is Interaction Design? This is a question that many have attempted to answer, but for which there is no consensus given the multidisciplinary background of interaction design and its intangible nature.

Incidentally, I finished Dan Saffer‘s Designing for Interaction tonight. I had a few pages left and thought it might be helpful for the writing at hand. Indeed, it was. Overall, I give the book high marks (and I’m not just saying that because Dan sometimes reads my blog). I enjoyed it because it coincides nicely with my graduate study (likely because he attended the same program a few years ago) and fills in the blanks in a few cases.

I enjoyed the chapters on service design and the future of interaction design the most. The glimpse into the future seems wicked exciting: robotics, wearables, ubiquitous computing. Of course, that future is pretty much now.

In a somewhat uncanny and somewhat perfectly logical fashion, Bill Moggridge‘s Designing Interactions showed up in the mail today.

I also finally got About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design. I say “finally” because it seems like I should have already read this book. Of course, I have no time to read it now. But it looks good on my bookshelf.

Apparently, I digress. My definition of interaction design? You’ll have to wait till I’m done with my essay. And as I have already wasted enough time, I’ll go back to writing.