Enhancing user experience with interaction design

Do you know what customers feel when they use your products in real life? Bewildered? Frustrated? Stressed? Or perhaps relaxed, invigorated and even liberated? Designers can help companies evoke the right set of emotions by making complex products easy, enjoyable and exciting to understand and consume.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Just when senior management started to appreciate the contribution of industrial designers, the field of product development has quietly moved on and entered the era of convergence.

The traditional boundaries between products and services, and between tangible and digital products, are getting increasingly blurred. This will have a profound impact on how we will innovate and design products and services in the near future.

Apple, a well known example, is all about convergence. Products (iPod), desktop applications (iTunes) and online services (the iTunes store) are seemlessly interconnected to create a coherent ecosystem. They can even be connected to other companies’ offerings (such as Nike sport shoes and Starbucks stores).

But some things never change

A key success factor in any interaction design project is to understand the true needs, wants and desires of the end-user. Genuine user insights based on systematic research provide the input designers need to create ground-breaking solutions that really add value to a product or service. That is why we define our core business -  Innovation for people!

Five eye-openers to take back to your desk and everyday work: