Interaction paradigms

Interaction design, unlike some design strands, is based on understanding the person (user) and cognitive principles.

There are several paradigms for developing the interaction of a product, but the most striking was the User Centered Design (a term coined by Don Norman) which gave rise to others. Namely Activity Centered Design (design centered on the activity or task, also coined by Don Norman) and Goal-Directed Design (coined by Alan Cooper).
Both paradigms represent in its entirety the same essence, although there are some differences.

Initially it is necessary to recognize the person's goals. For a product to be successful, even on a financial level, the business goals need to take into account the person's goals.

Goal-Directed Design

“… when a designer focuses on people’s goals – the reasons why they use a product in the first place – as well as their expectations, attitudes, and aptitudes, they can devise solutions that people find powerful and pleasurable.”
Cooper & Reimann & Cronin

Goal-Directed Design, as the term itself refers, focuses on the main objective of the service, and for this to be achieved it is necessary to go through intermediate stages, which is where the tasks or activities reside (relating to Activity Centered Design).

A person's goal is usually timeless and is directly linked to human motivations. While a task-only design runs the risk of becoming dependent on technology to perform those tasks, it could become obsolete more quickly.

“Understanding user’s goals can help designers eliminate the tasks and activities that better technology renders unnecessary for humans to perform.”
Cooper & Reimann & Cronin

Although people have to focus on tasks to achieve their goals, it is up to designers to identify who are these people who will interact with the product and thus determine what (and why) are their goals.
To determine these results, it is first necessary to resort to research.

Research

Currently, there are several research methods to obtain information about people, however, due to the connection of technology with marketing, the idea established was that analyzing the target audience in a commercial aspect (marketing) is enough to gather the necessary information.

Although these marketing techniques, such as market segmentation and others, are important for the sale of the product, they contribute very little to getting the information that really matters in the study of interaction, which is about how people use the product.

This information, can easily become quite complex, involving several specialized areas and disciplines that go far beyond commercial concepts.

In summary, the GDD paradigm follows the following methodology:
- research phase
- modeling, behavior and workflows phase
- creating personas and understanding what tasks are really needed
- joining what was previously collected with the development of the visual interface