Quotes About Interaction

Not being truly engaged with the people we're trying to communicate with, and then suffering the snags of misunderstanding, is the grit in the gears of daily life.

I hope they'll pay attention not so much to the mechanical things, like a sudden change of pace in a talk or a sudden change in volume of their voice. I hope they'll pay attention, instead, to the fundamental source of that pacing and volume, which is the connection with the other person. That connection makes us respond like a leaf in the breeze to whatever is happening in the faces of those in front of us.

It's being so aware of the other person that, even if you have your back to them, you're observing them. It's letting everything about them affect you; not just their words, but also their tone of voice, their body language, even subtle things like where they're standing in the room or how they occupy a chair. Relating is letting all that seep into you and have an effect on how you respond to the other person.

Real conversation can't happen if listening is just my waiting for you to finish talking.

If another player creates a bump in the sculpture, you don't ignore it; you acknowledge the bump and build on it. Communication doesn't take place because you tell somebody something. It takes place when you observe them closely and track their ability to follow you. Like making a sculpture out of space, communication is a group experience.

The difference between listening and pretending to listen, I discovered, is enormous. One is fluid, the other is rigid. One is alive, the other is stuffed. Eventually, I found a radical way of thinking about listening. Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you. When I'm willing to let them change me, something happens between us that's more interesting than a pair of dueling monologues.

Communication doesn't take place because you tell somebody something. It takes place when you observe them closely and track their ability to follow you. Like

Three hard of hearing guys are at a street corner. The first one says, 'Brrrr, it's windy!' The second one says, 'No, it's Thursday.' The third one says, 'Me too, let's get a drink.

The real interaction designer's decisions are based on what the user is trying to achieve.

Like putting an Armani suit on Attila the Hun, interface design only tells how to dress up an existing behavior.

To deliver both power and pleasure to users, interaction designers think first conceptually, then in terms of behavior, and last in terms of interface.

You can predict which features in any new technology will be used and which won't. The use of a feature is inversely proportional to the amount of interaction needed to control

Most software is used in a business context, so most victims of bad interaction are paid for their suffering. Their job forces them to use software, so they cannot choose not to use it—they can only tolerate it as well as they can. They are forced to submerge their frustration and to ignore the embarrassment they feel when the software makes them feel stupid.

Interaction design isn't merely a matter of aesthetic choice; rather, it is based on an understanding of users and cognitive principles.

People don't need to know all the details of how a complex mechanism actually works in order to use it, so they create a cognitive shorthand for explaining it. This explanation is powerful enough to cover their interactions with it but doesn't necessarily reflect its actual inner mechanics.

Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we should have people standing in the corners of our rooms.

Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we would have people standing in the corners of our rooms.

The more people respond positively to you, the easier it is to maintain a good attitude and joyful outlook.

Gabe!" she calls. "Dr. Gabe." He looks at her blankly "Don't you know me? You're my OB-GYN." Gabe's eyes move instinctively from her face to her crotch. He stares between her legs for a beat. His face lights up in recognition, as if he has X-ray vision. "Joanne! Sure . . . Joanne. How are you?" Both Joanne and I break up. Gabe blushes. "I see so many women," he says, making it worse.

When you talked you involved other people . . . you crept back out of the unbearable loneliness of experience.

all of us at various times in our lives believe true things for poor reasons, and false things for good reasons, and that whatever we think we know, whether we're right or wrong, arises from our interactions with other human beings. Thinking independently, solitarily, "for ourselves," is not an option.

every minute which passes at the beginning of a meeting before you announce your real intentions will generate either suspicion or caution.

Los llaneros son reservados con la gente que acaban de conocer —le respondió el médico—. Ten paciencia.

Only trying to make conversation, friend.' 'Don't bother - it's an overrated activity at the best of times.