As an interaction designer, I can observe how my field includes principles from design, technology, psychology, and cognitive science. There is a lot that goes into Interaction Design as a whole, but as designers, we should acknowledge how much of our discipline comes from the variety of art movements that emerged from the early 20th century.
One art movement that emerged during this time that I think was impactful for us designers was Expressionism. Expressionism, characterized by its bold forms and its intention to invoke big emotions, teaches us designers today about how we can manipulate visual cues to inspire certain emotions. Expressionism used intense colors to evoke equally intense emotions, and muted hues to inspire calmness. Today, we as designers are always trying to make each detail intentional. We try to think about what color signifies safety, what color could signal “error,” and what color could signify trust. All of these conventions that we are familiar with today can be seen already in practice in the 20th century Expressionism movement, and we have those pioneers to thank for our mental models of how we can inspire different emotions.
Another hugely impactful art movement and institution from this time is the Bauhaus. Bauhaus challenged the idea that art and design had to be simply decorative. The movement popularized design thinking that we still use today, like the idea “form follows function.” Bauhaus used typography and grid systems, all of which we use today. Bauhaus aimed to design to improve everyone’s life and not just for those who had access to decorative luxury. To me especially, I resonate with this principle as I believe that we as Interaction Designers should not design with the intention of excluding, but rather being as inclusive and accessible as possible. I think of all the movements, Bauhaus is the most relevant to our field today as their approach to design and their inclusion of human psychology is still so prevalent even in 2025. We learned from Bauhaus that psychology, engineering, and visual design can lead to effective innovation that can better the lives of not just one, but the many.
Another art movement from the early 20th century that we can learn from and use principles of today is Dada. Dadaism is characterized by its unconventionality and playfulness, which many might say is what we as designers should avoid. I would like to argue that Dadaism is exactly what we as designers should always keep in the back of our heads when we are attempting to invent or design something new and fresh. Dadaism is all about disruption and critique of norms, and as designers we are always aiming to improve upon an issue or to actually fix a problem. Oftentimes, in order to fix a problem, we as designers have to think of something new, and potentially controversial. From the Dada movement we can learn to brainstorm something unexpected to spark new user experiences.