Interaction Design is a field and approach to designing interactive experiences. These could be in any medium, not only digital media. Interactive experiences, necessarily, require time as an organizing principle (though not exclusively) and Interactive Design is concerned with a user, customer, audience, or participant's experience flow through time. Interactivity should not be confused with animation in which objects may move on a screen; interactivity is concerned with being part of the action of a system or performance and not merely watching the action passively.
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Design Principles for Multi-Window Online Information Systems 
The proliferation of online information complicates information retrieval for users, who must first learn to use the information system itself. Multi-window online information systems compound this problem further by complicating an already-unfamiliar interface. However, research and practical experience suggest some design principles that can help to maximize the benefits of a multi-window system.
Berry, Robert R. and Michelle Corbin Nichols. STC Proceedings (1996). Design>Human Computer Interaction
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Review: Designing for Interaction
Dan Saffer's Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices was an ambitious undertaking. In fewer than 300 pages, he has attempted to cover the history, current practice, and notions about the future of the rapidly evolving discipline of interaction design (IxD). Whether you are simply curious about interaction design, are entering the profession yourself, or are collaborating with an interaction designer, Designing for Interaction is a good place to start your journey down the road of interaction design.
Frishberg, Leo. UXmatters (2006). Articles>Reviews>Interaction Design
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Designing for Interactivity: Role Models, Guides, and Coaches
This paper presents three methods of user assistance: role models (simple demonstrations), guides (structured walk-throughs), and coaches (active assistants). After a brief introduction, potential uses, available development tools, and additional information sources are discussed for each method.
DeLoach, Scott. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Help>Interaction Design
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Interaction design for new technological environments relies on the tradition of human-computer interaction (HCI). With roots in the 1980s, HCI design paradigms often reflect the setting in which the user is an office worker in front of a desktop computer. As computational power can now be embedded in almost any type of product, the desktop setting has lost much of its relevance as a starting point for interface design. In particular, interfaces for wearable computing challenge designers to look for completely new approaches to interaction design. In this article, we propose a method in which the ideas for new creative forms of interaction design are triggered through panel work. This method draws on an underpinning theoretical framework from structural semiotics that emphasizes the holistic nature of design.
Pirhonen, Antti and Emma Murphy. Visual Communication (2008). Articles>Collaboration>Interaction Design
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Selections of 'least favorite' designs from graduate students of the George Mason University Department of Psychology.
Mintz, Farilee. Usability Interface (2006). Design>User Interface>Human Computer Interaction>User Centered Design
#30013
Devilish Details: Best Practices in Web Design
Visual and interaction design for successful e-commerce Web sites and Web-based applications requires meticulous attention to detail. Because the smallest matters can ruin the user experience, an orderly process--such as usage-centered design--guided by robust principles is needed; iterative testing and repetitive redesign is inadequate to find and address all the diverse matters needing attention. This paper reviews basic principles and then surveys best practices in the detailed aspects of Web design in three broad areas: details of architecture or organization, details of interaction design, and details relating to commercial activity, especially shopping. Specific recommendations in each area are offered as examples of best practices based on usage-centered principles.
Constantine, Larry L. Constantine and Lockwood (2003). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Interaction Design
#27969
During our recent Virtual Seminar on home page design, several people asked about whether it makes a difference if links are underlined or not. It's a good question and one we get frequently.
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2006). Design>Web Design>Usability>Interaction Design
#23562
Do Students Really Feel Integrated With Computers?
This paper reports the results of a survey of senior Business and Engineering majors conducted at the University of Cincinnati. The survey's goal was to examine whether or not students felt integrated with computers yet, since the technological trend is towards a human-computer interface.
Stibravy, John A. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>User Centered Design>Human Computer Interaction
#29982
One of the little known features of DHTML, at least within Internet Explorer 5.5 or above, is an attribute known as contentEditable. This attribute can be used to make areas of text within a Web page editable by the user. This is very different from a form element, such as a text box, as contentEditable can make a table cell, or a standard paragraph editable.
HyperWrite (2005). Articles>Web Design>Interaction Design>DHTML
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Educational Programs in Information Design 
More than graphic design, more than technical writing, but not really in the information architecture or interaction design space, the ideal information design program combines coursework that may touch all of these fields. This can make it hard for those interested in learning ID to find a suitable degree program (or course, as our friends across the pond like to say). Below are some programs that may be of interest.
STC Information Design SIG. Academic>Education>Information Design>Interaction Design
#23305
The Effects of Perceptual Grouping on Text Entry Performance
One of the primary challenges confronting designers of mobile computing devices is the issue of efficient text entry. One potential solution is to group multiple letters onto single keys, similar to the T9 keyboard currently used on telephones. Two experiments examined the effects of perceptual grouping on soft keyboard transcription rates. Results from Experiment 1 showed significantly slower transcription rates for QWERTY keyboards with grouped keys. Results from Experiment 2 showed various levels of perceptual interference due to the different Gestalt grouping effects. These results indicate that perceptual grouping can negatively affect text entry performance, and placing multiple letters onto single keys reduces the speed at which users can transcribe words.
Hamblin, Christopher J., Michael Bohan and Alex Chaparro. Usability News (2004). Design>Usability>Human Computer Interaction>PDA
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The Elements of Interaction Design
Other design disciplines use raw materials. Communication designers use basic visual elements such as the line. Industrial designers work with simple 3D shapes such as the cube, the sphere, and the cylinder. For interaction designers, who create products and services that can be digital (software) or analog (a karaoke machine) or both (a mobile phone), the design elements are more conceptual. And yet they offer a powerful set of components for interaction designers to bring to bear on their projects.
Saffer, Dan. UXmatters (2006). Design>Usability>Interaction Design
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Websites must tone down their individual appearance and distinct design in all ways: visual design; terminology and labeling; interaction design and workflow; and information architecture. These changes are driven by four different trends that all lead to the same conclusion.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Usability>Web Design>Interaction Design
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Evangelize with Usability: Using Invalid Users to Sell User Centered Design to a large organization
In larger technology companies it can often be difficult to develop an understanding of the advantages of doing good product design early. As Alan Cooper told us, 'The word 'design' is toxic in the world of business'. More so with Interaction Design and User Centered Design processes which require to be done early, close to the beginning of a project while the product is being defined and the requirements written. It is not unusual to find a number of very skeptical people around, who question, the time, budget and effort which must go into these activities. So how do you overcome this skepticism? How do you sell Interaction Design to a skeptical audience? The answer is to use Usability Testing as your early option for evangelizing your new principles and approach. By carefully selecting a set of 'invalid' test participants, you can sow the seeds for future success. This strategy is not without it's risks and it could easily backfire if your design is not good. This short paper seeks to advise you how to select the candidate evangelists and how to manage the risks of showing them the product early, so that you get the desired result - an influential band of company evangelists to your User Centered Design cause. People who will go forth and spread the word that your efforts, the budget and the time are not only necessary but essential for the future success of the business.
UIdesign (2000). Design>Usability>User Centered Design>Interaction Design
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Extending Motion into Interactivity: A Curriculum for Interaction Design 
One of the difficulties of teaching interaction design is its extremely vast scope. How do we decide what to emphasize and teach in this broad, multidisciplinary area? This article describes a framework for teaching interaction design that leverages basic art, design and motion skills taught in an art department. This framework also serves as a foundation for future discussions in theory.
Salto, Ron. AIGA (2002). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design
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Featuritis (or Creeping Featurism)
Featuritis or creeping featurism is the tendency for the number of features in a product (usually software product) to rise with each release of the product. What may have been a cohesive and consistent design in the early versions may end up as a patchwork of added features. And with extra features comes extra complexity.
Soegaard, Mads. Interaction-Design.org. Articles>Usability>Interaction Design>Project Management
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Fitts's User Interface Law Applied to the Web
Interface design is difficult in part because everything requires interpretation. A design that works for one task or one user might not be appropriate for another. In other types of engineering, like architecture or bridge building, designers can always rely on laws of physics and gravity to make designs work. There is at least one immutable rule for interface design that we know about, and it's called Fitts's Law. It can be applied to software interfaces as well as Web site design because it involves the way people interact with mouse or other pointing devices. Most GUI platforms have built-in common controls designed with Fitts's Law in mind. Many Web designers, however, have yet to recognize the powerful little facts that make this concept so useful.
Berkun, Scott. UIWeb (2000). Design>User Interface>Human Computer Interaction>Web Design
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Foundations of Interaction Design
Interaction Design is distinct from the other design disciplines. It's not Information Architecture, Industrial Design or even User Experience Design. It also isn't user interface design. Interaction design is not about form or even structure, but is more ephemeral--about why and when rather than about what and how.
Malouf, David Heller. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Design>User Centered Design>Interaction Design
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Foundations of Interaction Design
An interview with David Malouf on his article, Foundations of Interaction Design. We discuss several foundations of Interaction design including time, metaphor, abstraction, and negative space. David also provides greater detail to comments posted on his article from readers from around the world.
Malouf, David Heller and Jeff Parks. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>User Interface>Interaction Design>Podcasts
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Four-Dimensional Writing: Creating Content for Interactive Media
The medium is an integral part of the message when writing for interactive delivery systems. Interactive media requires attention to details on several dimensions for communication of the content. Writers must focus not only on words and meaning, but also on how the content is presented. We can look to other disciplines for models of how they document the translation of ideas into reality. The detailed design document or storyboard is the essential tool for describing multimedia content in all four dimensions.
Wirth, Frances. STC Proceedings (2003). Design>Multimedia>Interaction Design>Writing
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From Computing Machinery to Interaction Design
When asked to project 50 years ahead, a scientist is in a bit of a quandary. It is easy to indulge in wishful thinking, or to promote favorite current projects and proposals, but it is a daunting task to anticipate what will actually come to pass in a time span that is eons long in our modern accelerated age. If fifty years ago, when the ACM was founded, biologists had been asked to predict the next 50 years of biology, it would have taken amazing prescience to anticipate the science of molecular biology. Or for that matter, only a few years before the initiation of the ACM even those with the most insight about computing would have been completely unable to foresee today's world of pervasive workstations, mobile communicators, and gigabit networking.
Winograd, Terry. Stanford University (1997). Design>User Interface>Interaction Design
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This position paper looks at two examples where the study of fun is at very least systematic, and quite possibly scientific. In the first, Virtual Crackers, a systematic process of 'deconstructing experience'; identifies the individual aspects of an experience (pulling crackers), which are then used to reconstruct a new experience in a new medium (the web).
Dix, Alan. uiGarden (2004). Articles>User Centered Design>Human Computer Interaction
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Giving the Human Touch to Software
Making too many assumptions about users’ expectations and levels of competence can get software developers into a lot of trouble. Here, Yogita Sahoo tells her own story about designing an application for an industry she was deeply familiar with—but that industry knowledge didn’t keep her from making some big usability blunders.
Sahoo, Yogita. StickyMinds (2003). Design>Human Computer Interaction>Software
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This site is meant to be an online museum of graphical interfaces, especially those old, obscure and in desperate need of preservation. For those interested in seeing how the GUIs evolved throughout the decades.
GUIdebook (2004). Design>User Interface>Human Computer Interaction
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HCI Design for Network and System Management
All too often the people responsible for the care and feeding of the information technology infrastructure are poorly supported by the very technology they must manage, even as the popularity and use of networks (such as for the World Wide Web) grows. Corporate MIS staffs spend billions of dollars just on managing their computing infrastructures, and still they must continually cope with ineffectual products that do not support them in their work. A $2,000 PC may cost $5,000 to $10,000 a year to support.(1) This Special Interest Group (SIG) provided an opportunity for over 30 HCI practitioners and researchers in the domain of network and system management to share information about the problems faced by operators, system managers, administrators, and end users, and to explore new techniques in user interface design that might provide better support in the future. The group spent the majority of its time sharing information about design problems in a structured brain-storming exercise. Candidate areas for solutions were considered in response to the defined problem.
Graefe, Thomas M. and Dennis Wixon. SIGCHI Bulletin (1997). Design>Human Computer Interaction>Management
