Puzzle and Interaction
Georges Perec, the silly and brilliant French author (who, among other things, writes a novel without any use of “e”), discusses jigsaw puzzles in the Preamble of his masterpiece La vie mode d’emploi (Life A User’s Manual) thus:
“…despite appearances, puzzling is not a solitary game: every move the puzzler makes, the puzzle-maker has made before; every piece the puzzler picks up, and picks up again, and studies and strokes, every combination he tries, and tries a second time, every blunder and every insight, each hope and each discouragement have all been designed, calculated, and decided by the other.”
Perhaps interaction design is also a form of puzzle-making. A good puzzle should be neither too obvious nor too frustrating. How puzzling!