WEBVTT 00:00:03.360 --> 00:00:07.920 So we know we're not just designing  interfaces, we're designing interactions.   00:00:07.920 --> 00:00:11.860 We're not just designing interactions,  we're designing interventions.   00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:17.720 That's your job. However, what do  we mean by design? What is design?   00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:29.440 This is one of those things that there'll  be 50,000 answers to this question. 00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:33.279 I'm going to give you one but  hopefully it's one that's helpful.   00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:41.194 So I'm going to say, first of all, that design  is about achieving goals within constraints.   00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:47.440 So there's some sort of goal or purpose that  you're after. In interaction design that might   00:00:47.440 --> 00:00:52.400 be about an enjoyment goal for people,  about giving... having somebody in   00:00:52.400 --> 00:00:57.440 to be able to see a film or be able to listen  to music. Or to be able to engage in a social   00:00:57.440 --> 00:01:01.680 relationship. It might be a work goal  like achieving something efficiently,   00:01:01.680 --> 00:01:06.480 being able to produce videos easily. But there's a goal there. And this is true   00:01:06.480 --> 00:01:10.880 probably of design in general. Even if you're  designing pure art, you have some sort of 00:01:10.880 --> 00:01:16.857 goal, which might be, again, it might be aesthetic  or it might be about helping people understand meaning. 00:01:16.857 --> 00:01:21.144 There's a purpose that you have there. And it's about trying to achieve that purpose. 00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:27.040 However, there are constraints to that. You  do not usually have total freedom, otherwise   00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:32.100 you become a magician, not a designer. Those constraints are critical. 00:01:32.100 --> 00:01:37.200 Some of those design constraints might be about the kinds of medium that you have to work with. 00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:42.480 If you're a painter, whether you're using oils  or watercolors, but as an interaction designer,   00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:47.683 it's about your computers that you're using,  what kind of device somebody is likely to have.   00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:52.160 What kind of platform they're on. Is it for an Apple or an Android,   00:01:52.160 --> 00:01:56.676 if it's for a phone or something else? These are  sort of broad questions. 00:01:56.676 --> 00:02:02.560 And sometimes you might have choices on those. So that becomes part of your design remit, to make those choices.  00:02:02.560 --> 00:02:06.720 Other times they're given to you. This  is going to run in this organization and   00:02:06.720 --> 00:02:13.040 everybody has this kind of computer, full stop  [period]. There's also constraints about time   00:02:13.040 --> 00:02:20.240 and money. What's available to you? You do not  usually design with unlimited money or time.  00:02:20.240 --> 00:02:24.560 You make choices there. So because  there are constraints, you have to   00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:30.880 make choices and trade-offs between some of your  constraints. But constraints are usually given.   00:02:30.880 --> 00:02:36.800 So the trade-off you often have to make is  between different goals and purposes.  00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:42.640 Which of multiple goals are you going to achieve?  If I'm designing some video editing software,   00:02:42.640 --> 00:02:46.880 I want to make it obviously  as pleasurable and enjoyable   00:02:46.880 --> 00:02:52.383 to use by the person editing as I can. I don't want them to have a horrible job. 00:02:52.383 --> 00:02:58.296 However, I also might want to produce the highest-quality video that is possible, 00:02:58.296 --> 00:03:03.523 because that's going to improve the experience ultimately of a person like yourself watching this video.   00:03:04.880 --> 00:03:10.000 It could be that I have to trade these off. I have to have something that's going to take   00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:15.920 more effort and possibly not very interesting and  enjoyable effort by the person doing video editing   00:03:15.920 --> 00:03:21.600 in order to produce a better quality for you.  There is a trade-off. I cannot usually achieve   00:03:21.600 --> 00:03:27.640 all of my goals and constraints. Trade-offs are essential to design.   00:03:29.600 --> 00:03:33.822 The second of those constraints, one of the core  constraints you have is your materials. 00:03:33.822 --> 00:03:38.480 In an art setting that might be about the kind of paint  you're using or what you're using, whether you're   00:03:38.480 --> 00:03:42.282 painting or whether you're doing sculpting. Clearly that makes a difference. 00:03:42.282 --> 00:03:46.997 If you're a sculptor and if you're using stone or wood, that is going to change the nature of what you produce.   00:03:47.200 --> 00:03:53.360 This is also true of physical design, and  it's also true of interaction design.  00:03:53.360 --> 00:03:58.560 So in a physical sense, I often – I won't do it  now – but I can lift up chairs and things like 00:03:58.560 --> 00:04:03.195 this and say, ah, look, this chair is made of  metal. 00:04:03.195 --> 00:04:07.564 If you take the design of a chair that's made of metal it will often have thin legs. 00:04:07.564 --> 00:04:10.320 If you make that in wood, the legs would break. 00:04:10.320 --> 00:04:14.560 But similarly, if you take a wooden chair, that's  a much more solid one, and made it metal, it would 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:20.320 probably be too heavy to move. The materials  used change the fundamental nature of design. 00:04:20.320 --> 00:04:26.357 That's true of physical design, but it's also  true of digital design. You have to understand   00:04:26.560 --> 00:04:33.840 the nature of materials you're using. So if you  design something that is initially designed for   00:04:33.840 --> 00:04:40.560 a desktop computer and just take the same design  and squash it into a phone, it won't work. 00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:45.520 If you take a design that is designed for  your phone and then try and put it without   00:04:45.520 --> 00:04:53.040 sufficient changes onto a voice interaction, it  won't work. You have to understand your materials.   00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:56.080 So what are your materials? I've already given you some of them,   00:04:56.080 --> 00:05:01.280 the kind of platform you're on. Your computer  is part of the materials. You have to understand   00:05:01.280 --> 00:05:06.160 the nature of what's possible. Some of  that's obvious, like the screen size,   00:05:06.160 --> 00:05:11.120 the thing I was just talking about. But also, what computation is possible? Say you're   00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:15.120 the designer, you're not a builder yourself. Say  to the person who is actually constructing this:   00:05:15.120 --> 00:05:20.800 "Oh, this this has to work like this. Is that  possible?". Or are you making things so difficult   00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:25.078 that you will cause problems elsewhere? What are the fundamental capacities of it? 00:05:25.078 --> 00:05:36.084 You cannot, for instance, ask that for an interactive  video, that you have instant-millisecond 00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:41.440 timing between two places, distance on the Earth,  because the speed of light constrains you. 00:05:41.440 --> 00:05:46.960 There are constraints and capacities like that,  but also storage capacity. How much video can   00:05:46.960 --> 00:05:51.320 you store on a computer? That's a limited  amount, depending on the kind of device.   00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:54.800 The kinds of tools you've got to use,  the kind of platforms you're on... 00:05:54.800 --> 00:06:01.884 All of these are part of the material that's  available to you as a designer. 00:06:01.884 --> 00:06:06.430 Now, it might be that some of the details of that are done by other people, 00:06:06.430 --> 00:06:11.120 but you have to design something that works within those constraints.You have to understand the material,   00:06:11.120 --> 00:06:16.080 the digital material. But of course, you also  have to understand people. The other aspect of   00:06:16.080 --> 00:06:22.080 it is the people, the other crucial aspect. So  you have to understand the nature of people. 00:06:22.080 --> 00:06:28.400 Otherwise, you can't design for them. People are  part of your materials. You have to understand   00:06:28.400 --> 00:06:36.160 their psychology, their social nature. And of  course, these extra things which are complicated   00:06:36.160 --> 00:06:41.280 about the interaction between the people and  technology and between people and each other. 00:06:41.280 --> 00:06:47.291 So you have a rich picture of materials.  Now, you might be starting to think – and   00:06:47.440 --> 00:06:51.120 as I say "materials" and then I put  people into that picture – you might   00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:55.661 have been comfortable with me saying "your  computer is a material". Of course... 00:06:56.080 --> 00:07:00.960 But people as your material, surely that's a  little bit functional way to think about people?   00:07:00.960 --> 00:07:07.520 Well, it is. People are not a material in  the same sense as the paint you choose when   00:07:07.520 --> 00:07:10.960 you're painting or whether you choose to  use stone or wood when you're carving. 00:07:10.960 --> 00:07:16.320 It's not the same. People have  individuality. However, what we say   00:07:16.320 --> 00:07:21.680 is that if you only treat people as well as you  treat materials, you probably treat them better   00:07:21.680 --> 00:07:27.760 than they are often treated in design. So we  treat people at least as good as materials. 00:07:27.760 --> 00:07:34.720 I'll explain why. How many times have you heard  there's been a big accident, whether it's a plane   00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:41.240 accident, train accident or something like  that. People say, "Oh, it was human error,   00:07:41.240 --> 00:07:44.913 it was due to human error". The person didn't do the right thing at the right point. 00:07:44.913 --> 00:07:48.961 They didn't notice something  that was important and things went wrong. 00:07:49.520 --> 00:07:54.663 You might have said it. It might be in a  hospital situation, industrial situation.   00:07:56.160 --> 00:08:02.320 So just imagine instead the wing falls off the  plane because there's metal fatigue where the   00:08:02.320 --> 00:08:07.200 wing joined the plane. Now you would say it was due to the metal fatigue, but you wouldn't   00:08:07.200 --> 00:08:14.560 say "it was metal error". You would say "it's a  design error". Because the designer of the plane,   00:08:14.560 --> 00:08:20.320 the engineers, the detail designers would have  had to – should have – understood the nature of   00:08:20.320 --> 00:08:25.600 metal and the fact that you do get metal fatigue  after a while. You should either design it 00:08:25.600 --> 00:08:31.360 so that where there's metal fatigue, it doesn't  fundamentally mean the plane will crash.   00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:35.120 Or you design it so that you can detect  when that metal fatigue is happening   00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:39.120 and then take preventive maintenance.  There are a number of strategies you've got   00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:47.051 because you understand that metal as a  material has known ways of failing. 00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:52.800 We as humans have limits and  constraints and ways that we   00:08:52.800 --> 00:08:58.571 fail in the sense we don't always do things in the  perfect way. Just like a piece of metal doesn't.   00:08:59.600 --> 00:09:09.840 As a designer your job is to understand those  limitations of people as actors in the system.   00:09:09.840 --> 00:09:15.040 And ensure that the design of the system as a whole works even when those happen. So whenever   00:09:15.040 --> 00:09:19.520 you hear about human error, it was human  error. But typically, it wasn't the operator   00:09:19.520 --> 00:09:25.738 or the pilot or the nurse or the doctor in  the hospital. It was typically the designer   00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:31.280 of the system that's there. If you treat users as well as a piece   00:09:31.280 --> 00:09:36.428 of metal. You are probably dealing with them  a lot better than they usually are dealt with.   00:09:37.280 --> 00:09:44.000 So having said that, let's just roll back and  come back to what's the central message here? 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:50.280 The central message is that for you as a  designer, the user is at the heart of what you do.   00:09:50.440 --> 00:09:54.160 Understanding your users,  and you have to understand   00:09:54.160 --> 00:09:58.560 the technology you work with, but understand  those users, understand the nature of them. 00:09:58.560 --> 00:10:04.323 And as I said, then you'll start to treat them  far better, hopefully, than a piece of metal.