Interaction designer

An interaction designer is responsible for designing the way users interact with services. ‘Interactions’ mean the things a user does on a webpage, such as clicking a link or entering information into a form.

Interactive elements of interfaces, such as buttons and menus, need to be intuitive and user-friendly. They need to make sense in terms of where they are, how they function and how they look.

For example, it would be strange to expect a user to complete a long form and then have to scroll all the way back to the top of the page to click ‘submit’, rather than putting the submit button at the end of the form.

For users to interact with the service in a way that causes minimal confusion or frustration, the interface needs to make sense and work as a user expects it to.

What do interaction designers do?

Interaction designers are responsible for what happens on a webpage when someone clicks, taps, types, or scrolls.

Interaction designers need to understand users and their needs and know how to create software, applications, and websites that function properly when users engage with them. In government, this also involves following our design and accessibility standards and ensuring compatibility with different technologies.

As a user researcher, you learn what people need, expect, and struggle with. Interaction designers take that knowledge and turn it into sensible user journeys. This involves creating the layout, flow, and feel of a digital service, thinking about how people move from one step to the next.

Interaction designers rely on evidence and user research to prototype and test their ideas, so that they can quickly identify and solve problems and create service interfaces that are clean, effective, and easy to use. They use design tools like Figma or Sketch to build clickable prototypes, which are tested and improved based on research.

Working with an interaction designer as a user researcher

Interaction designers create and test prototypes based on what you discover during user research. These prototypes are then tested, tweaked and iterated until the final service design is complete.

User research is essential for every stage of this process.

In the beginning, the interaction designers need to know who they’re designing for so that they can start coming up with prototypes, and then they need to know if it is working.

They need to know what users are doing when they interact with the service interface, not just what they say or think. Interaction designers rely on user research to find out where people get confused, stuck, or make errors.

User research can also provide insight into user expectations that come from their previous experiences on other services. When you tell them what users expect, they can potentially design something familiar that they know will work for users straight away – or try to design something that might change user expectations by providing a better option of how to complete a task.

Collaboration is key. User researchers and interaction designers explore the user journey together, testing early often to iterate and improve. Together, you can focus on outcomes and ensure that the solution being built meets the needs of all your users. Catching and fixing problems early in the process helps avoid costly mistakes later.

It is helpful for user researchers to be familiar with the tools and technologies used by interaction designers so that you can communicate in the correct terms and understand design limits when helping to solve problems. Being able to directly influence the outcome of the service by suggesting feasible solutions that will actually work will greatly improve your relationship with interaction designers.

Lastly, user researchers should advocate for accessibility at all times. If a user struggles to complete a step because of layout, colours, or movement, it’s likely a design issue, not just a user error.

While interaction designers in government should adhere to the design principles and service standards, user research will always uncover areas for improvement. No design will perfectly meet every user need from the outset. When accessibility or technology compatibility issues arise, it’s important to address them as early as possible, in a way that works within what is possible for the interaction designer and what users need to work for then.