The interaction designer makes sure that the product is as easy to use as possible, both in the visual presentation, information structure and in behaviour.
Making technology user-friendly
To succeed with digitalisation, sophisticated technology is not enough. Interaction designers ensure that the human perspective and the user’s experience play a vital role when developing the technology, resulting in user-friendly solutions. Interaction design is, therefore, part of the big family of UX (user experience) design, which looks at the bigger picture of creating holistic and meaningful experiences for the users.
Across all industries
In Norway, interaction design is used across all sectors, helping to simplify people’s lives with tools that have become irreplaceable everyday assistants. We check the timetable and buy our public transport tickets through Ruter's mobile apps. Yr.no’s weather reports are used by most Norwegians daily and by nearly 10 million people around the world every week.
On Norway’s most popular online market place, Finn.no, we sell everything from homes to used clothes, and search for flights, jobs or tradesmen, while the game-based learning platform Kahoot! has made learning fun for millions of people all over the world.
Changing from bureaucratic and complicated
The financial sector is leading the way when it comes to using interaction designers to help beat the fierce competition in the market. One example is the mobile payment app Vipps, which is now being used by 75 % of the Norwegian population. The service has changed the way we transfer money to both friends and companies and is now expanding internationally.
The public sector is also a mature user of interaction design and has recently revamped Altinn, the website that provides access to public services, changing it from a bureaucratic and complicated site to a helpful service that makes sending in your tax return or other documents easy.
Demand for more interaction designers
We like to think that we have world-class interaction designers in Norway. According to a recent study, interaction and digital designers make up 17 % of the total Norwegian design scene, second only to the graphic designers. The problem is that we still don't have enough of them. Because as the demand grows for interaction designers, there just aren't enough being educated.
Several Norwegian colleges and universities provide courses in interaction design, but there is a critical need for more designers. It is also imperative to get interaction and UX design into the schools, to impress on everyone the importance of design and user experience in any future technological development.
IxDA Oslo
If you want to know more about the expanding interaction design scene in Norway, you can visit IxDA Oslo, the local group of the world-wide Interaction Design Association (IxDA).
