Posts by Yansong Teng

ethical responsibilities in IXD designer

Designers also need to maintain user autonomy, avoid influencing user decisions through dark modes or excessive persuasion, and ensure that users can customize or choose not to use AI recommendations. At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to the safety and mental health of users, prevent the negative effects that AI may cause (such as misleading information or addictive behavior), and design corresponding protection mechanisms. Responsible for the results of AI, providing user feedback channels, allowing for questioning or correction of AI decisions, thereby establishing user trust and promoting the sustainable development and rational application of AI technology.

I believe that when integrating AI into design, interaction designers need to ensure transparency and fairness. Enable users to understand the working principle and decision-making basis of AI systems, while protecting user privacy, minimizing data collection and ensuring data security, and avoiding the abuse of user information. In addition, bias and discrimination in AI systems should be avoided to ensure design inclusivity and meet the needs of users with different backgrounds and abilities.

Pace Layers 

The Pace Layers framework divides the design system into layers with different rates of change, helping designers understand the evolution of each layer over time. In interaction design, rapidly changing UI styles and interaction trends determine short-term updates, while slower changing user behavior, culture, and technological infrastructure affect long-term stability. Designers need to find a balance between responding to trends and maintaining consistency, such as updating interfaces without compromising underlying technology and user experience.


Through Pace Layers, designers clarify the roles of each layer: fast layers are suitable for continuous optimization, medium layers need to consider compatibility, and slow layers lay the foundation for design. By using this framework, designers can effectively respond to changes, develop innovative and sustainable design strategies, balance short-term innovation with long-term stability, and enhance user experience.

iPod & iPhone

The emergence of the iPod and iPhone represents people’s transition from physical buttons to virtual interaction. People have started to interact with multi-touch screens with their fingers, upgrading their interaction with devices from button operations to direct touch. This more natural way of interaction has changed the way users experience technology. At the same time, the iPod, iPhone, and other devices with the same “ecosystem” are further changing people’s association with independent devices. They have built a complete and seamless digital ecosystem, rather than being limited to individual devices.
At the same time, their birth also promoted the development of NUI, and the popularity of touch screens made gesture-based interaction the mainstream. In today’s world, the number of PCs is far less than the popularity of mobile phones.


At the same time, due to the touch features of the iPhone and Apple’s “mobile first” principle, people are gradually promoting the development of “flat” design.


At the same time, the birth of the Apple Store further spurred the interactive development of applications.

Web2.0

I believe that the current interaction design field is built on the foundation of Web 2.0. Because static web pages dominated the first stage of the development of the Internet, people did not have too much “interaction” on it, and people did not have the awareness of “interaction” with the Internet or web pages. In the era of Web 2.0, more attention was paid to user-driven, people began to notice the importance of interaction between people and dynamic pages, and more emphasis was placed on collaboration and sharing user content. So people are no longer simply acquiring information and constantly creating information at the same time.

Transition from web design to User Experience Design

With the explosion of electronic products, including the popularity of mobile devices, people gradually moved from the web to applications. A simple example is that Steve Jobs did not add the Apple Store feature to the first generation of iOS in iPhone 1, but this feature was added to iPhone 3G a year later. This is also due to the needs of users. People began to pay more attention to the “visual effects” and “information showing” that are the main concerns of web design. People found that users have different operating logic and operation methods when using products in different situations. Based on this, designers have identified a design principle: user-centered design concept. At the same time, web design usually focused on a single interface in the past, but with the diversification of user needs and the development of interaction design, UX design began to focus on the entire journey of users from entering the website to leaving. At the same time, with HCI and psychology gradually joining the part of interaction design, people began to try to use the theories of these disciplines to understand user behavior patterns in order to further optimize the interaction logic and journey map of users using products.

Thought about design system in interaction design

I think the design system is a very good specification that can facilitate designers to collaborate with the team to design. The design system can present the results of research and design to the team in a more reasonable, clear and visual way. The design system provides a standard, clear and strict layout plan for beginners and designers. To some extent, it does make the design template-like, but I think this allows designers to focus more on higher-level creativity and improve user experience and process interactions without having to reinvent the wheel.
At the same time, the design system is also constantly summarized and improved in a large number of interactive designs. It is not a completely fixed plan, but a model and template that can be continuously improved and progressed over time.

Internet & Government

I think, first of all, the government, companies, and open-source enterprises should be viewed separately.


Firstly, there is the government, which is essentially a management and violent institution. As a management organization, it should focus its main energy on how to further innovate its own country’s companies, while as a violent organization, it also must develop new defense and attack technologies with the core of safeguarding national security. But as for interaction design and cutting-edge technology, the government should not take responsibility for this part but should guide the open-source community and enterprises to develop new technologies.


As a company, I believe they have a responsibility to develop new technologies. When there are competitors in the industry, they also invest more funds in research and development for the sake of competition. The simplest example is the competition between Intel, Nvidia, and AMD, where they spontaneously develop new technologies in constant competition. Recently, Intel has even taken a gamble to develop low-voltage and standard-voltage CPUs due to the further development of AMD’s personal chips.


As an open-source community, they are born with new technologies themselves. For example, on Github, countless programmers publish their works, and this is a positive cycle where people constantly inherit the experience of their predecessors and explore new technologies.

About GUI

The biggest change since the early days of Macintosh/Windows is that information has gradually been hidden, and people have named this kind of hiding hierarchy. People have created the desktop, throwing all personalized settings into the “settings” and throwing the operations of the advance into the corners of the GUI. People usually need to engage in more in-depth interactions to access the panels that control them. GUI has become more human-friendly, allowing people to interact with the virtual world more and more intuitively. Where there is a table, there are drawers. People throw a large number of applications into the drawers and store them only on the desktop for daily use. At the same time, early operations mostly relied on mice and keyboards, such as clicking, dragging, etc. But now, not only are computers in the same category, but the birth of mobile phones has also led people to incorporate touch into a new primary way of interaction. Gesture operations, voice control, and other methods have increased users’ interactive choices.


What remains unchanged is the role of icons, which are still the core functions of visual prompts and quick navigation in the app.


Now, people are hoping for cross-platform collaboration and interaction capabilities, more diverse accessibility designs, and the expansion of interaction once again.


Nowadays, we generally refer to smartphones, computers, and tablets of the same brand as having an “ecosystem”. This means that they can usually work together, such as the photo album function. People with an ecosystem usually have synchronized photo albums on their phones, computers, and tablets. And now I believe that it is possible to further synchronize the functions, allowing devices to only have differences in interaction and display form.
Companies such as Apple, Samsung, and Huawei are now focusing on AI, hoping to incorporate more AI into people’s daily interactions. A simple example is a schedule. For example, if someone sends you a message saying, “I bought a plane ticket for tomorrow morning,” people can have their phones automatically recognize the text on the screen in the future. Then, the phone can use AI for semantic recognition and automatically set a schedule reminder for the next morning. Decreasing GUI interaction will be the next direction we hope to strive for.

Thought about Lucy Suchmanm

Lucy Suchmanm’s research at Xerox truly began to involve the interaction between humans and machines. She believes that user behavior is not always based on the intentions involved or predictable in advance. She believes user actions stem from the environment and state they wish to use. Lucy believes that when using a printer (early PC), users do not need to follow the operating instructions step by step to print strictly, but can more intuitively help users improvise their needs. She hopes to encourage printer designers to pay more attention to user interaction and adaptability, emphasizing the importance of designing based on people’s actual behavior in practice.

Some thought about Swissnex Exhibition

This is a new possibility, as people are gradually exploring different applications of AI. The vast majority of this exhibition is generated from the interaction between humans and AI. Through various artworks and research projects, the exhibition explores the generative power of artificial intelligence, how language models create infinite artistic possibilities, and the ethical and creative challenges brought about by the growing presence of artificial intelligence in the creative process. Among them, the main areas of concentration are AI painting, AI games, and AI digital art. People can use AI to draw and constantly adjust the images in the picture

Photo from Official website / swissnex.org

How did the Xerox Star change the direction of computing?

Xerox Star 8010

The Xerox Star, released in 1981, was a groundbreaking system that significantly influenced the direction of personal computing. Developed at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), it introduced many concepts that are now standard in modern computing.

For interaction design, the most obvious point is that it first showcased a relatively complete Graphical User Interface, Called GUI to the public in the business field. This technology is not unfamiliar to people today, simply put, it is “what you see is what you get”. This means that the screen display matches the printed output, and people can intuitively click and interact with the computer. The use of icons to represent files, programs, and functions simplifies the computing experience and inspires future systems to focus on visual metaphors rather than text-based commands.


At the same time, the mouse has once again been mentioned in computer systems, which is a second and more flexible input device different from the keyboard.


It can be said that this product directly affects the future production of Macintosh by Apple and the Windows operating system by Microsoft. Steve Jobs visited the famous Xerox PARC, where many of Star’s ideas were integrated into the first-generation Macintosh, helping to bring GUI-based computing to the public.

Apple Macintosh

Microsoft Windows 1.0

Why was the demo by Douglas Engelbart and the team at SRI so important?

According to the video, Douglas Engelbart’s demonstration in 1968 was a groundbreaking moment in the history of computing, as it introduced many key concepts that form the foundation of modern computing. A few simple examples are the mouse, GUI, and hyperlinks People first used the mouse as a key operating medium for computers, which allowed them to use it in GUI. GUI, which was born earlier than MacOS and Windows, also demonstrated visual manipulation rather than simply keyboard input to control the PC. At the same time, the existence of hyperlinks can be said to have laid the foundation for the concept of the Web, as it helped people first recognize the idea of “jump forwarding”.

Response – Fei Fei Li’s AI Journey

Fei-Fei Li’s AI journey is more fundamentally about the discomfort and contradiction between humans and the surge in productivity. It cannot be denied that regardless of the type of AI, it is inevitable that a large number of humans will use it and generate text/images for machine learning in current technology. No matter what AI model it is, they will always involve the views of the human community on the pieced-together things.

On the Internet in China, people have a name for AI of the type of Wensheng map, which is called “corpse”. This is not a good word, but it can clearly express the mainstream opinion on AI. One reason is that a large part of AI training conducted by commercial companies is still carried out through unauthorized resources. Another reason is people’s fear of AI being able to produce extremely quickly in a short period of time. In China, there are many young people (under 25 years old) who learn painting, and they will spend at least three years practicing a lot of basic skills. Now, AI can easily reach the same height in just a few seconds. Even though there are still shortcomings in text and image-type AI, AI has already solved the problem of “hands” that were once difficult to draw in just one year. It can be foreseen that a large number of non-high-quality drawing assignments will be handed over to AI in the future, including but not limited to some simple novel cover drawing, basic character drawings, preliminary storyboarding, and so on.

Setting aside current AI on the market such as ChatGPT, Stable Difference, etc., and focusing on B2B industrial AI, a simple example is Huawei’s predictive shape AI for metal processing in China. In the past, the melting and forging of mineral materials were extremely unstable because iron blocks and coal would undergo various complex chemical reactions during combustion. At this time, it was necessary to rely on artificial intelligence to increase or decrease different mineral materials to complete the extraction of ore. Now, relying on industrial AI, factories can automatically increase or decrease mineral materials. Different mineral materials and furnaces require different conditions for mineral material to increase or decrease. With the help of AI, factories can rapidly reduce the loss of mineral materials and fuel.

It can be clearly observed that the main areas that cause people to develop aversion are those that are easily accessible to ordinary people, while in more complex and professional fields, people hope to use AI to quickly increase efficiency and save costs.

In my opinion, interaction design always revolves around the design of people and machines or people and machines. The design concept of user-centered design will be implemented throughout my entire design career. My design needs to revolve around how to help users understand and use it from start to finish. The commercial use of generative AI still cannot be accepted by a large number of users in a short period of time, and the current AI-related laws are still in a gray area. In the practice and interaction direction of IXD, text-based AI can quickly draw storyboards, while text-based AI can quickly help me solve a large number of problems related to coding and other different fields. These problems are usually relatively simple, and in the past it was difficult for people to find suitable answers. Generally speaking, people tend to ask people around them, but now they only need to ask AI to quickly get debugging. This is a very efficient solution. In some past projects, I usually asked AI about the availability of a certain interaction condition, asking it to provide me with some solutions. Then, I would evaluate these solutions, search for solutions through different channels, and finally verify them from multiple sources to help me advance the IXD project.

I think AI is more like an assistant than a designer. In Li’s lecture, he emphasized the importance of empathy in technology. She discussed how to develop artificial intelligence with a focus on human values, emphasizing the need for technology to enhance our understanding and connection with the world around us. When I reflect on my practice in Interaction Design (IXD), this viewpoint resonates with me.

Some thought for Fitt’s Law & Gestalt Principles

Establishing a clear hierarchical structure is crucial in interaction design. By classifying each module and function based on the Gestalt principle (especially the proximity principle), I can arrange related functions coherently within the module. By utilizing the principles of similarity and closure, I can quickly create preliminary wireframes, while the graphic background principle enhances my model by ensuring that important elements stand out.


Combining these principles can help optimize the layout of the interface, making it more reasonable and intuitive. This design strategy enables users to quickly grasp the software’s layout, improving their ability to effectively achieve their goals.


From the perspective of Fitt’s law, I can further optimize the user experience by adjusting button size, spacing, and edge targets. Combining clear feedback of hovering state and independent elements enhances the touch experience and makes users more comfortable.


Ultimately, this integration approach conforms to the user centered design principle, resulting in a smoother and more enjoyable software user experience.

Why are Ada Lovelace and Lillian Gilbreth important to know about for IXD History?

As an important pioneer in engineering, engineering, and management theory, Lillian Gilbreth is a very important example of early interaction by combining human factors, psychology, and scientific management.


Compared to Lillian Gilbreth, Ada Lovelace is more like an important figure who laid the foundation for modern electronic systems and interaction design. Her most important asset is something that appears to be the world’s first computer program. It is a machine-executed algorithm and perhaps the earliest computer algorithm to appear worldwide. She was also the first person to realize that electronic devices have applications beyond pure symbol addition and subtraction calculations. In contrast, others at the same time, including Babbage, may not have realized this.


For interaction design, these people were involved in and designed the earliest interactions, namely human factors and human-computer interaction. Ada enabled people to participate in the “interaction” between humans and computing units in a physical sense for the first time

Instagram Icon vs Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Ancient texts/symbols were often more complex than today’s abstracted icons. However, there were also some graphics whose appearance did not change much, still presented in a relatively simple and similar shape. At the same time, the meanings they represent may have changed or increased.

A simple example is “star”:

As you can see, the star in Egyptian hieroglyphics is elementary and intuitive. The pictographic characters of “star” are usually used to represent the night sky, the existence of gods, and eternal celestial bodies. Its shape is often a simple pentagon or hexagon, used to symbolize the stars in the sky, and has symbolic significance in religion and cosmology. This symbol carries profound ideas about the order of the universe and divine power and is part of the Egyptian religious and philosophical system.

And in Application “Instagram”, the star icon symbolizes what post you are truly a favorite. It conveys the meaning of “special” and “worthy of attention”, usually used for special markings.

“Star” presents a simple and easily recognizable shape with pentagonal or hexagonal symmetry in any civilization. At the same time, stars are used to mark or emphasize particularly important things: stars in the physical sense, gods in philosophy and religious systems; And the added meaning of “special attention” in modern times. They are all special, important, and highlighted.