Defining Interactive Design

Interaction Design is the design of spaces for human communication and action. Allowing humans to relate to a program, which responds to its users. Interaction Design is made up of a fusion of several things, rather than just one, these include sound, motion, images etc.

In an interview Gillian Smith, she gives the following definition of interaction design,
“In the same way that industrial designers have shaped our everyday life through objects that they design for our offices and for our homes, interaction design is shaping our life with interactive echnologies, computers, telecommunications, mobile phones, and so on. If I were to sum up interaction design in a sentence, I would say that it’s about shaping our everyday life through digital artefacts, for work, for play, and for entertainment.” (Smith, 11)

According to Nathan Shedroff, Interactive Design can be broken down into four main spectrums, each as important as the other. These are:

Feedback and Control - Focusing on how much control the audience has over the outcome or the rate, sequence or type of action and how much feedback exits in the interface.

Creative Experience and Productivity - Creative Experiences allow a user, creator, or participant to make, do or share something with others. Some experiences can be used more productively than others, but being creative and producing something are typically more interesting, entertaining and fulfilling activities.

Adaptive Experiences - Adaptive technologies are those that change the experience based on the behaviour of the user, reader, consumer, or actor.

Communicative Experience - Provides opportunities to meet others, talk with them, and share their personal stories and options, are always viewed as valuable and interesting. These experiences involve two or more people.
(Shedroff, 10-11)

Basically Interactive Design refers to the moulding of products and services which allow you to interact and experience a particular situation to the full extent, both physically and mentally.

References:

Shredroff, Nathan. Information Interaction Design: A Unified Field Theory Design. 1994. pg 1-15.

Smith, Gillian Crampton. “Forward” What Is Interaction Design? 2002. pg 7-20