good interaction design

on the ixd discuss list david heller asks the question "what makes for a 'good' interaction?"

some of the responses:

me - the axiom from joel spolsky's User Interface Design for Programmers:

"A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves exactly how the user thought it would."

i then asked if this applied to ixd and if this is achievable.

david then asked to narrow it down to good interaction and not good design and to start by defining what is an interaction.

i liked robert reimann's response:

So, to answer Dave's question, I'd define interaction as:

object(s) + action(s) + context + behavior

What makes good interactions will obviously vary somewhat
according to domain and context.

and hans samuelson's:

I personally work with a model of three different kinds of interaction:

- physical interactions (hands and senses)
- social interactions (conversations)
- abstract interactions (interplay between datasets)

Each of these has a different logic of 'good' interaction, both inside and outside the machine. And each interaction design context will include one or more of these kinds of interaction. From this point of view, it's our job to make sure that these are properly interwoven, represented, and balanced, and that appropriate and timely feedback support the context-driven tasks both physically and cognitively.