- Compare and contrast instructional design process and interaction design process. How are they similar? How are they different?
It seems that with instructional design, the focus falls more on structuring and communicating content in a way that makes sense.
It seems that with interaction design, it feels spacial and tactile- like how a user would interact in a 3d world or with a website or with a room...
One seems to deal more with making the content and its structure make sense, and the other seems to deal more with making sure the look and feel of the structure makes sense...
Interaction design makes me think interface/userface design... I think that as instructional designers, we could really use interactive designers to help to achieve a super feng shui'd training program, website, or instructional game. We could communicate the content clearly and structurally in the back end, and they would communicate the way the learners get TO the material... I'm wondering if that makes any sense.
- What qualities do instructional designers and interaction designers have in common? How are they different?
According to this website that describes an interaction designer, I feel like we both:
- "Learn new domains quickly
- Solve problems both analytically and creatively
- Be able to visualize and simplify complex systems
- Empathize with users, their needs, and their aspirations
- Understand the strengths and limitations of both humans and technology
- Share a passion for making the world a better place through ethical, purposeful, pragmatic, and elegant design solutions"
Except for the last one... maybe not all people or instructional designers want to make the world a better place. :-) Though the ones I know seem to :-)
We are both concerned with the structure of the material, but I think interaction designers are more concerned with the look and feel of the material, the artistic beauty of the product and it's meaning to the users. As an instructional designer, I want to be sure content is clean, clear and understandable to the user. The more I think of it the more I want to be sure my material is actually appealing to draw the user in to begin with.
It seems interaction designers pull the learners and users IN and direct traffic, while instructional designers make sure that learners understand the purpose and meaning of the journey itself.
I understand and really liked your analogy of interaction designers being more like feng shui designers. They can create that balance with user to make sure that their chi doesn't get out of balance with ineffective design strategy.
ReplyDeleteMy take is that modern instructional designers are using many of the techniques mentioned 10 years ago in interaction design. I think we do incorporate "usability" and "user satisfaction" into our designs. We do this with the objectives, content, assessments and of course, the user interface.
It would be great to have a feng shui master of interaction design on the design team for sure. Isn't that what we are in the program for in a way?