Interaction Design is married to language, as design is synonymous with communication. To create a compelling behavior means to have a cohesive dialogue with a person, and in order to speak with a person, a designer must first know, respect and understand a bit about that person. Think of the alienation that occurs in a foreign land where one does not speak the native language. The sense of anxiety, yet the embracement of possibility is the same space that a person encounters when first discovering a “designed interaction.”

A designer does not simply create an object. The importance of understanding the long term dialogue that occurs with a product focuses around the cultural methods of use and misuse that a person engages in with this object. Indeed, long term dialogue may be exponentially more important than short term usability. Consider a teddy bear. The bear becomes worn, loved, the nose bitten off, the seams begin to sag. This bear has spoken, as has the user, and the course of the dialogue has created a relationship between inanimate (albeit highly personified) object and human. The language the bear speaks engages words as emotion. We understand the bear as an object, yet we love it as if it were human.

The communication of language can be considered on a level of content, and can also be thought of on a level of clarity. How well is the message, whatever it may be, disseminated? Has the “styling” been corrupted through poor materials or lost in translation as the product traveled to China to be manufactured? Does the message communicated through software make sense when viewed in light of the hardware?

While the previous chapters have discussed a framework for considering Interaction Design as the design of behavior, this section analyzes the more rhetorical views of Interaction Design. The role of language is examined as it relates to the design of objects, services and systems. Traditional views of design as dialogue are extended to investigate the role of a poetic interaction—and how designers can begin to view their creations in terms of dialogue, words and argument.