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Abstract: Contemporary digital technology is constantly evolving. We’ve seen job descriptions grow lengthy, encompassing not just education, craft and design thinking skills, but also describing a hybrid designer with programming comprehension. Such technical advancement particularly affects educators, who often find themselves torn between teaching the mechanics of technology or its language and ideas; the latter usually based on broader conceptual frameworks and rarely hands-on in nature. The conundrum: Do they teach the software and its associated programming languages, or do they teach the concepts: user research, usability, wire-framing, interface design and user experience? Quite often, design students suffer the consequences when a choice is made of one over another.
In the School of Visual Communication Design at Kent State University, a strategy is being employed to address both technology training and interactive conceptual thinking. In our Kinetic and Sequential Graphic Design class the concepts and techniques of the language of interaction are co-taught through a framework based on prototyping. Students employ ethnographic research techniques to investigate specific user groups. Large scale maps, wireframes and paper prototypes help them categorize data, and understand the user experience. These steps are crucial as they help slow down the often rushed process of designing an interactive environment and provide pauses for reflective thought. Finally, through basic programming of HTML, CSS and ActionScript (used in Flash and Dreamweaver), students create reflective, interactive artifacts. This course slowly introduces students to complex topics as they execute deliverables while simultaneously learning the concepts and processes of interaction design.