DIS

DIS provides an intimate semi-annual forum for serious reflection on the practice of designing interactive systems. This is a crucial time to refine our discipline and to figure out where we are headed. Two years ago, at the last DIS, we all had jobs, and were riding high on the new economy. Things are different this year.

Twenty years ago, I was lucky to participate in introducing to the world the Xerox Star, which established the standards for what we now call the graphical user interface, the "desktop" or "windows". You could argue that our sponsoring organization, the Association for Computing Machinery, Special Interest Group for Computer Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI) has been focused for the past twenty years on improving the usability of these graphical computers as they have changed the way we all work and communicate.

Now, almost everyone has a "desktop" interface on their desktop or laptop but we are more likely to interact with a computer (including graphical user interfaces!) when we use the phone, check the calendar, take a picture or drive a car. Think about all the places we are confronted with selecting items from menus, or dealing with modes and arbitrary mappings. What happens when computers become "ubiquitous", "pervasive", "tangible" or "invisible"? Is there a new discipline of design, like architecture or industrial design, that spans the human and the technical, dealing with invention as well as implementation?

I like to call this new discipline "interaction design" and claim that the interaction designer answers three questions:

HOW DO YOU DO?

HOW DO YOU FEEL?

HOW DO YOU KNOW?

We DO with either handles or buttons.

We FEEL either "hot" or "cool" (McLuhan's message).

We KNOW with maps or paths.

Our practice ranges from observation and invention to analysis and implementation. The goal is good mappings for controls and displays organized by appropriate modes or mental models for different tasks. We try to create meaning through metaphors and scenarios while understanding the breakdowns and ideals that motivate design.

At DIS2002 we present 14 exhibits, 30 papers and seven invited sessions. My hope in having organized the invited sessions is that we can begin to tie down a definition of interaction design as a new discipline. Tuesday evening, the conference will be kicked-off by Bill Moggridge, an industrial designer who has transformed his practice over the last 15 years to include what he calls "interaction design". For DIS, he will show some of his "interviews with interaction designers".

Wednesday there are two panels on education. I consider Gillian Crampton Smith, Pelle Ehn and John Maeda the leading educators of "interaction designers". Gillian is now in Italy, directing the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea. Pelle Elm teaches what he calls 'the digital bauhaus' at Maim6 in Sweden. John Maeda teaches 'aesthetics and computing' at the MIT Media Lab.

Joy Mountford has put together a panel of former and current students who have been influenced by the 'design competitions' she started at Apple and continued at Interval Research. All of these designers have become more 'interdisciplinary' by learning to work with interdisciplinary teams.

Thursday, two panels are planned as an opportunity to reflect on current design practice. Ben Fry, a PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab, will bring his perspectives as a young interaction designer to examine the exhibits. Later in the day, Nico Macdonald will bring his perspectives as a journalist to give us a preview of our evening tour of London design offices.

Friday we hear from two of the most provocative and thoughtful interaction designers. Fiona Raby and Anthony Dunne, research fellows at the Royal College of Art, explore the relationship of industrial design, architecture and electronic media. Finally, Friday afternoon, Tom Moran, one of the pioneers of HCI at Xerox but now at IBM, will reflect on the impossibility of 'design'when the essence of interaction is 'adaptation'.

We are all engaged in 'everyday design'.

I hope that after DIS2002, you wilt all consider yourselves 'interaction designers' and continue to develop a common set of issues and answers that may serve to tie us together as a reflective practice.