The biological and cultural nature of the IxD

Designing for interactive system is deeply different from designing for objects that to exhibit their functionalities do not need to interact with people. Bill Moggridge and William Werplank, both involved in the design of the first personal computer – the XeroxStar 8010, put forward the name Interaction Design to define this specific design activity. Interaction Design implies designing the artefacts’ behaviour as well as the features that communicate to the user such behaviours. At difference from more traditional design approaches, which focused on shape and more recently on content and meaning, Interaction Design strives first to define how artefacts should behave and how should they communicate, evoke, inhibit or exalt such potential behaviours, specially the ones emerging from a tight coupling with humans.