Interactive Design- A defintion

To design with interactivity in mind- is to design without wasting your time. To illustrate this point simply consider this. When you write to any degree, one thing you generally do is check your spelling and your grammar. Small corrections of word choice, spelling and grammar usage can make the process of reading your work actually feasible (at the extremes)- or just more enjoyable and natural.

At its essence, the process of such editing is what I would call interaction design. By looking beyond and evaluating the actually process of how people will interact with this extension of yourself (what ever medium it is)- helps explores its functionality on a much higher and sometimes more obscure plane of design. And really a fundamental one.

So to really bring it home- interaction design is the mentality that you should apply to anything you make from now on. You make a batch of cookies- put them in a cookie jar, so its clear their cookies! Don't put them in a container next to the dry dog food- it will dampen the approach, and anyones chance of eating them.

Or maybe more practical- next time you finish your next indesign file- print it out, and watch your mum, your dad- maybe even your dog, just read and interact with it. Do they gloss over the small- but actually really important text? Spend more time looking at the really colorful cover as opposed to the very plain contents page? Do they even know what its trying to tell them? Its this end user approach which in the end- will make you a better designer, writer or even cookie baker!