Amazon does this great thing - we’ve all seen it - where they keep track of what you’re buying and make recommendations based on your buying habits.

About a year or so ago, when I was still doing a lot of Flash development work, I logged in to make another purchase and noticed Amazon was recommending a whole lot of books on the same topic, and it wasn’t Flash development. It was interaction design.

I hadn’t really noticed how obsessed I’d become with the subject. After all, I was still a Flash geek by profession. “But you know”, I started thinking, “what I’ve always loved about Flash is that it’s great for developing rich interactions for the web.”

Then I remembered that my entire history in this business had been as a designer, and I only eventually became a developer to learn to build the things I designed. And I remembered that interaction design has been part of every job. User research, product definitions, wireframes for whole interfaces, use cases, task flows - I’d done it all, and gotten quite adept at it, and it was always my passion.

I never meant to become a programmer. I did it to further my design abilities. Eventually, though, it took over and I really wasn’t enjoying it.

Upon seeing Amazon’s recommendations, though, I decided it was time to get a job doing interaction design work exclusively. Amazon showed me what I already knew. I’m supposed to be an interaction designer. It’s what I love doing.

The moral of the story is that seeing what’s right in front of you is not always easy, so if you get to a point where you’re complaining about your job a lot, you might check Amazon to see what it recommends. Could be that whatever you’re buying the most books about is what you should be doing.

Thanks, Amazon.

Posted by Robert on November 24th, 2006