So the other day I asked my friend Sarah where the best place to find an accurate definition of "Interaction Design" would be. She pointed me towards Wikipedia for a good start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_design

On that page I found this quote:

"Interaction Design is often associated with the design of system interfaces in a variety of media...with a focus on developing the system to respond to the user's experience and not the other way around."

How fitting. I can't help but view Wikipedia as a great example of a system that responds to the user's experience. Granted, it's a web page and navigating the web doesn't change while using Wikipedia. But USING Wikipedia is certainly a different experience than using the web at large.

It's also a great example of what I would call very good Interaction Design, whereas I typically notice when Interaction Design fails the user and becomes a hinderance. Wikipedia is the opposite. You don't necessarily notice its interactive qualities, which is how a system should react.

My guess is most of my thoughts on design revolve around the negative and I'm just as interested in exploring the positives as well.