Words
Labels, buttons, errors, and instructions. The shortest copy in the interface carries the most weight.
Field notes / Interaction design
What is interaction design?
Interaction design is the practice of shaping the dialogue between a person and a product — what people can do, how the system responds, and how that exchange feels from moment to moment.
Design the conversation, not just the screens.
The core model
Every interface is a conversation on a loop.
A person acts, the system answers, and the quality of that exchange — its speed, clarity, and honesty — is what people experience as “good design.”
- IntentA person arrives with a goal, not an interest in your interface. The interface is only the means.
- ActionThey act on whatever the design suggests is possible — a tap, a swipe, a typed command.
- ResponseThe system does something and the interface must show it: state change, motion, confirmation, or error.
- InterpretationThe person reads the result and decides what to do next. Good design makes this step nearly effortless.
When the loop runs smoothly, the interface disappears and people simply do their work. When it stalls — slow responses, missing feedback, surprising results — every turn of the loop costs attention, and attention is the budget the whole product runs on.
The material
Five dimensions of interaction design.
A framework from Gillian Crampton Smith and Kevin Silver: interaction designers work in five materials at once, not just pixels.
Visuals
Typography, icons, imagery, and layout that communicate state and hierarchy before anyone reads a word.
Objects & space
The device and context of use: a thumb on a phone outdoors is a different design problem than a mouse at a desk.
Time
Animation, sound, and duration. Progress, waiting, and change over time all need to be designed, not left to chance.
Behaviour
How the system reacts to what people do — including mistakes. This is where an interface earns or loses trust.
The principles
What makes an interface feel obvious.
Six ideas, most of them older than the web, that separate interfaces people trust from interfaces people tolerate.
Affordance & signifiers
Things should look like what they do. A button that reads as pressable gets pressed; an ambiguous one gets ignored.
Feedback
Every action deserves a visible reaction. Silence after a click is how users learn to distrust an interface.
Mapping
Controls should relate naturally to their effects, the way a well-placed knob maps to the correct burner on a stove.
Constraints
Good interfaces make errors hard to commit in the first place by limiting choices to what is currently valid.
Consistency
Same problem, same pattern. Every needless variation makes people re-learn the interface instead of using it.
Forgiveness
People will make mistakes. Undo, confirmation for destructive actions, and recoverable states keep mistakes cheap.
The detail work
Microinteractions carry the experience.
A saved draft, a password check, a pull-to-refresh: tiny loops of trigger, rules, and feedback. Products feel polished when hundreds of these are deliberately designed — and feel broken when they are accidents.
Interaction design is how HAAM builds.
Every HAAM engagement treats the interaction loop as the product: prototypes make behaviour tangible early, and shipped work is verified against how people actually move through it.
Bring a product problem