This is the first post in the interviews series I decided to conduct with human-computer interaction designers based in different locations around the world, with different nationalities, backgrounds, and careers.
Dan Wu: Berlin-dreaming
M: Hi Dan, you are the first to be interviewed in this series of “what is on a designer mind”. Can you tell me a short intro about yourself?
D: I’m Dan, I grow up in China and came to Europe for my master study 3 years ago, now I live in Berlin and working as a product designer in Babbel.
M: In what way did your formal studies of HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) contribute to your skill set relevant to your current job?
D: I studied industrial design in my bachelor, and I found that compared to how a product looks like, I care more about how a product presents the affordance and how people understand and react to it. e.g.how people know if they should pull or push or slide to open a door. We also had some basic interaction design courses to guide us tried out the whole process of making a website, compares to produce a physical product it’s way faster and cheaper to fit in more iterations. Meanwhile, I failed my German language test for industrial design Master in Germany(lol), so I applied for an English program of HCID.
M: Have you had a recent experience at work that you got to use some principles of design from your formal studies?
D: I’m sure there are many, but I might only notice some of them.
The Gestalt principle when doing interface design, using space and putting relates components closer.
Always think from the user perspective, it sounds simple, but when I first start working, I often get distracted from technical/scope limits from the request and begin tackling the problem from the wrong direction. (Then things usually goes wrong and waste a lot of time)
M: How do you position your current job in the designer/developer spectrum? Tell us more about your role.
D: Product designer, my tasks starts with a blurry line between general requests and detailed feature plan, and I’ll help PO define the problem better by creating personas and scenarios. Then depends on the complexity, I create the information architecture, and user flows to align all stakeholders and get feedback. Then making prototypes (low-high fidelity) to get more feedback including user testing. Finally, I’ll deliver the specs to developers and support the implementation process.
M: There is always a common debate on the exact definition of the design roles, what is your take on this?
D: I was confused by those for a while, and now I see it as different terminology different organizations use and they all belongs to part of the whole design process. I think designers should be able to cover the whole design process from ideation to deliver production level design, and of course, many of us would have our preferred tasks depends on personal skill sets and company setting.
M: Can a designer be a developer? And vice versa?
D: If she/he wants to, then yes of course and vice versa. I do think that one does all is very cool, but since it’s a different mindset, I think it would be less efficient if one person has to switch in between too frequently.
M: What is a recent interactive design that you have seen recently and appreciated?
D: An Arctic museum I’ve recently visited in Finland, it designed for different target user group, e.g., cartoon instructions in a lower position for kids and a consistent character to guide the tour.
They also project a video of northern light; I usually find video material less powerful in museums because people are in the mood of walking around and check the next thing. But they set the screen on the roof and put many ‘lying seats,’ visitors by default become quieter and more focused the moment they lie down and look into the ‘sky,’ and it naturally creates a the right atmosphere.
M: Can you tell me your definition of Human-Computer Interaction?
D: With computers starting to disappear and merge into our daily life, I’d say broadly, any form of effort that makes people feel better surrounding and using machines.
See you in Part 2!
Engineering The Design 