If you have had some sort of difficulty in the past trying to define what Interaction Design is (specially if you call yourself an Interaction Designer), this video shall help get you closer to that answer.

IxDA’s co-founder David Malouf leads the over 70-minutes long conversation, alongside fellow Interaction Designers Ted Booth and Jennifer Bove.

This video doesn’t only address where Interaction Design currently is, but mostly importantly, it attempts to provide a clear(er) idea of what is. I found this very helpful for various reasons. I think Jennifer Bove says it best during the video when she asks “Have you ever tried to explain to your mum what you do?”. My easy way out is to say “I design web sites”, but if you are reading this, you are likely to know that it’s not as easy to define your profession compared to Doctors and Lawyers.

The discussion touches on various topics that I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who had questions on. What is our clay? What is our tool? (Illustrator? OmniGraffle? Flash?); where do we land in the scheme of the product (or services) development? (Is interaction design more marketing? science? creative force? business analysis?) What exactly are we borrowing form Human-Computer Interaction? Ergonomics? Industrial Design? The discussion even brings in Agile Development into the mix —exploring how exactly interaction designers are placed within this new and widely implemented development process.

This video leaves you with many things to think about.