Interactive systems engineering

Interactive systems engineering is considered as an interdisciplinary field with computer engineering, systems engineering, interaction design, software development, aesthetic, ethnography, psychology and usability factors involved. It targets current trends in the design and development of interactive systems which virtually includes all types of devices and systems which a human interacts with. It talks about four types of interaction in computer systems: the interaction between a human and computer (also addressed as human–computer interaction), interaction between computer systems, and interaction between users through the computer system. Traditionally human–computer interaction is divided into three subject:[1] design, user experience, engineering. Interactive system engineering is more concerned about the latter subject.

Engineering and design

One such trend is towards highly collaborative scenarios where groups of people interact within environments with many devices and services, typically utilizing many modalities. Another trend is towards distributed, mobile and heterogeneous (physically and socially) work settings. On a basis of modeling, programming, design and theory building, interactive systems engineering specializes in collaborative computing, ubiquitous computing, adaptive user interfaces, affective interaction, multimodal interaction, multimodal interfaces, human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, cognitive, social science, principles of visualization.[2] In general the need for professional people trained in the design, development and management of interfaces and interactive systems is growing. Engineers with a specialization in interactive systems are necessary both in industry and in other sectors of society. Important industrial sectors include manufacturing, process control, telecommunication, transportation, health care, media and entertainment.[2] Perhaps the most obvious recent example of the importance of interactive systems design is the design of services in mobile and wireless communication settings.[2] An interactive systems designer defines personas, scenarios, and requirements to guide designs, inspire clients and builds consensus[3] concerning the affordance, usability, visibility, mapping and feedback. In research about IT design, expertise and methodology for studying human communication are increasingly important, both for understanding and studying the situated use of computer artifacts generally, and for analyzing the rapidly growing applications of information technology for communication and cooperation.[4]

Industry

There are a lot of different roles on the market for an interactive systems engineer. Some companies do not consider the usability aspect at all while some have it as their core. Working as an interaction designer requires a good knowledge things like PowerPoint, Flash, PhotoShop, web tools and other rapid prototyping tools, but only a small piece of a much larger toolbox. The interaction designer is concerned with interactions where at least one human user is present, i.e. human-system, or human-human, and of course human-system-human (e.g. telephones). To make a good design the designer must have knowledge of how humans behave and react, but also what the technology can provide in order to create the best possible interaction experience. Also, in a development project, the interactive systems engineer must provide and evaluate sketches, models and prototypes of the developing system, and then follow up on their implementation, to make sure that the design meets the requirements set up for it. In practice the interactive systems engineer is working close with the system designers, the users (of course) and basically everyone who has the power to influence the result. The ID must be present during specification, requirement, implementation, testing and marketing, and plan for all these phases, and be ready to re-plan when functional, financial or technological constraints evolve (as they always do). The interactive systems engineers are probably less concerned with the decisions on the lower levels, like what kind of database management system is used, implementation languages, communication protocols and such. In industry the programmer and interaction designer are rarely separated. As a computer programmer, you can work in developing all the aspects of the user interface, evaluating user experience... you will rarely, I believe, find a job as an interaction designer that does not involve some programming, although you would be more qualified to later manage projects (regarding user-machine interaction systems) than just having programming knowledge, as you will possess an overall knowledge.

Research

No research there is a lot of room for interaction systems engineers as they are necessary to get the full picture and coordinate the work from the different parties involved, understanding the technological requirements as well as the user's needs and the user experience.

See also

References

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Further reading

Some companies active in the field

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