Interaction Desginers - Marc Rettig

Marc Rettig came to talk to the innaugural London meeting of a new group known simply as Interaction Designers a few weeks ago. He has a great case study on designing the interaction for a complex CAT (computerized axial tomography) scanning-cum-arterial-surgery-planning device. There was one tool he's developed for analysing the context surrounding task flow that looks particularly useful. It's well worth closer inspection and captures information about: Required Information; Required Knowledge; Potential Errors; Success Conditions; Barriers to Success; Cognitive Task; Ongoing Concerns for each task the application must facilitate. See it in his and Brian Herzfeldt's paper entitled 'Interaction design case: VasSol CANVAS' which can be found under the 'Project Case Study' section on Marc's site

The Interaction Designers mailing list has been a little quiet to date, but It's only a baby. The start of something purely for interaction design is a good thing, as there's a few communitites dedicated to Information Architecture that spill over into interaction issues as it pertains to information design. But, the wider field of interaction design that covers the physical world as well as the etherial, is better equipped to inspire those within this specific dicipline. Now to see if it can overcome Clay Shirky's Power Law

Marc's done a lot of work toward forming a syllabus for teaching interaction design at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design. It's well documented on the AIGA site here. It's just the sort of inspiration we need here at 'The Corporation' in order to formulate our own interaction design training syllabus. I'd be grateful for any suggestions of areas to cover. What do people learning interaction design need to know most? What don't they absolutely have to know, but should?