Welcome to the fifth edition of Interaction Design: beyond human-computer interaction and our interactive website at www.id-book.com. Building on the success of the previous edi- tions, we have substantially updated and streamlined the material in this book to provide a comprehensive introduction to the fast-growing and multi-disciplinary field of interaction design. Rather than let the book expand, however, we have again made a conscious effort to keep it at the same size.

Our textbook is aimed at both professionals who want to find out more about inter- action design and students from a range of backgrounds studying introductory classes in human-computer interaction, interaction design, information and communications technol- ogy, web design, software engineering, digital media, information systems, and information studies. It will appeal to practitioners, designers, and researchers who want to discover what is new in the field or to learn about a specific design approach, method, interface, or topic. It is also written to appeal to a general audience interested in design and technology.

It is called Interaction Design: beyond human-computer interaction because interaction design has traditionally been concerned with a broader scope of issues, topics, and methods than was originally the scope of human-computer interaction (HCI)—although nowadays, the two increasingly overlap in scope and coverage of topics. We define interaction design as follows:

Designing interactive products to support the way people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives.

Interaction design requires an understanding of the capabilities and desires of people and the kinds of technology that are available. Interaction designers use this knowledge to discover requirements and develop and manage them to produce a design. Our textbook pro- vides an introduction to all of these areas. It teaches practical techniques to support develop- ment as well as discussing possible technologies and design alternatives.

The number of different types of interface and applications available to today’s interac- tion designers continues to increase steadily, so our textbook, likewise, has been expanded to cover these new technologies. For example, we discuss and provide examples of brain, smart, robotic, wearable, shareable, augmented reality, and multimodel interfaces, as well as more traditional desktop, multimedia, and web-based interfaces. Interaction design in practice is changing fast, so we cover a range of processes, issues, and examples throughout the book.

The book has 16 chapters, and it includes discussion of the different design approaches in common use; how cognitive, social, and affective issues apply to interaction design; and how to gather, analyze, and present data for interaction design. A central theme is that design and evaluation are interwoven, highly iterative processes, with some roots in theory but that rely strongly on good practice to create usable products. The book has a hands-on orienta- tion and explains how to carry out a variety of techniques used to design and evaluate the wide range of new applications coming onto the market. It has a strong pedagogical design and includes many activities (with detailed comments) and more complex activities that can form the basis for student projects. There are also “Dilemmas,” which encourage readers to weigh the pros and cons of controversial issues.