THINK IN 4D

Heinz offers a guide to the complex contours of interactive design.

The author astutely observes that product design is a “slippery beast”—there is a challenging multiplicity of parts that must be seamlessly combined into a coherent whole by an intricate “co-creation” of collaborators. To help the reader learn “how to think holistically, creatively, and critically” while engaging in interactive design, Heinz presents a helpful schema that divides the process into parts. The product experience itself is broken down into four phases: “Threads” are the “assorted touchpoints” that first connect the potential user to a product, and include everything from a marketing campaign to word-of-mouth information. “Impressions” are the user’s first encounter with images of the product on a screen, a “flash across visitors’ retinas.” “Interactions” make up the bulk of a user’s experience, encounters that live in “Memories,” the fourth and final element, understood as “aggregated internal impacts of an experience.” These four elements are approached from three different perspectives that encompass the various dimensions of the user’s experience; these include 2D (words, images layouts), 3D (devices and environments), and 4D (“the moments, paths, patterns, and relationships that occur over short or long time frames”). This analytical model forms the basis of the entire book, which succinctly details the entire creative landscape of interactive design strategy. Heinz is not providing a rigid system to preempt the creative process, but rather a framework within which creativity can flourish: “even geniuses have to start somewhere.” The author has 20 years of experience as a design consultant in New York City, and her expertise is evident—this is an erudite, savvy book that communicates difficult, technical ideas with accessible, largely jargon-free prose. For both the seasoned veteran of interactive design and the unpolished newcomer, this is an invaluable resource.

An impressively thorough and clear introduction to a still-new discipline.