Interaction design is a critical element in the creation of interactive services and products, going beyond the physical item to address ways that users interact with it. It's the part of user experience (UX) design that focuses on designing how a product works or behaves. Interaction designers ask themselves several questions throughout the process, including whether the product's behavior is predictable and useful. Additionally, interaction design ensures that users can accomplish their goals when using the product with as few steps and as little effort as possible. It's the emotional and physical dialogue that transpires between a user and a product, service, or system.
If you're passionate about delivering an amazing user experience, interaction design is a critical part of the puzzle. Do you want to play a role in creating products that are effective, safe, efficient, and memorable? interaction design gives you the ability to think about how users move through each step of using a product, which empowers you to better organize everything that goes into it so that it's consistent with how users need to navigate it. Learning about interaction design also gives you a solid foundation in the five main dimensions for working in in it: words, visual representations, physical objects, time, and behavior. No matter if you're dabbling with UX on your own or interested in taking the next step in your career, learning interaction design is a strong step forward.
People with a strong knowledge base and interaction design skills are in demand for a variety of jobs, including design strategists, information architects, user interface designers, mobile designers, user experience designers, content strategists and web designers. While you might work in different parts of the design realm, you'll be charges with creating meaningful experiences for users. Because you gain more than just design skills, you'll be prepared to enter a range of jobs. Every design process is unique to the project, but it always involves research, ideation, prototyping, and testing.
Courses and Specializations on Coursera are designed to give you the skills and knowledge you need to start your career or shift it to one in interaction design. You can choose Specialization options from partners like the University of Michigan, University of California San Diego, and Georgia Institute of Technology. Choose from single courses like Human-Centered Design or an Introduction to User Experience Design to get started with storyboarding and prototyping. Or sign up for a specialization that takes you further into the process of coming up with design ideas, fast prototyping techniques, and using those prototypes to get valuable feedback to create products that users love.