What's your background?

[Rachel]

Hi everyone! I'm new to the IXDA community here - but I'm a long-time bay area resident and graphic/print designer.

I'm curious as to how many of the designers here went to interaction design-specific or HCI programs and how many learned 'on the job' so to speak - I'm currently in a masters program that is largely self designed, but I plan on taking some cognitive psychology courses as well.

Any advice on making the transition from more traditionally-based design to interactive/user interface? In the past couple years I've done some wireframes for an early-state startup's website, and done user interace design for an iphone game. I'm really interested in internship opportunities for this summer and am looking at places like IDEO (prof has a connection with them) and smaller companies around the bay area and NYC - I know it's extremely competitive, and would appreciate any and all advice.

[Joshua Kaufman]

Hi Rachel,

I can't speak to transitioning from traditionally-based design to interaction design/UI, but in case you hadn't seen it, you may be interested in some of the feedback on this thread:
http://ixdasf.ning.com/forum/topics/how-to-become-an-interaction

Cheers,
Joshua