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Here is how I explain what I do as an interaction designer, and it usually comes up very early in my discussion with new clients.

I ask them: “What do people have to do in order for you to be successful?”.

Simple question. Now, the answer might be that people need to click on ads or install software or create/save social objects or buy a product. Each one of these answers is fine, but it often takes a little bit of digging to find out the real actions that people need to take. For example, if the initial answer is “click on ads” then I have to dig deeper to find out why someone might be on the site/app in the first place…people just don’t randomly visit to click on ads.

But the resulting behavior is what I design for. That’s it…once I know what needs to happen for my client to be successful my only focus is on eliciting that behavior.

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