“Smart graphic design is always some balance of current expressive trends, information architecture, classical layout aesthetics, and detailed research on user preferences and motivations. You should never ignore solid user experience data, but mountains of data won’t auto-magically build you a successful site. Design is a synthetic activity. It can be informed by the results of analysis, but the tools of analysis don’t create beautiful designs.” – Patrick Lynch

Patrick’s quote is from the article “Visual Desision Making.”

Today marks inspireUX’s 200th quote! In order to keep sharing inspiring UX quotes with you three times a week, I’ll need your help. Please take a moment to:

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“Attractive things work better… When you wash and wax a car, it drives better, doesn’t it? Or at least feels like it does.” – Don Norman

This quote is from the article “The Secret of Apple Design” by Technology Review. This site requires a login to read the full article. Read more from Don on this subject in his paper “Attractive Things Work Better.” (PDF)

Thanks to Robert Shedd for submitting this quote!

“Design, in the end, is about creating better things for people. Along the way, it can generate better profits as well.” – Bruce Nussbaum

Read Bruce’s interview with Peter Lawrence, chairman of the Corporate Design Foundation, for his thoughts on why “designers must take the lead in the New Economy.”

Thanks to @ibmdesign for sharing this quote.

“In an ideal world, social responsibility would be a prerequisite for design, and designers would vow to produce beautiful, useful, positive, responsible, functional, and economical things and concepts that are meaningful additions to—or sometimes subtractions from—the world we live in. Indeed, design deserves such thoughtful consideration.” – Paola Antonelli

Read more from Paola, senior curator of design and architecture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, in her article “Core Principles” from Seed Magazine.

Thanks to @nonperishable and @21xdesign for sharing this article on Twitter!

“I’ve come to believe strongly that one of the roles of design is to bring humanity, intelligence and beauty to the world of business, and indeed to everyday life. In my experience, good clients and good designers don’t see this goal as being opposed to—or even separate from—achieving business goals, but rather an integral part of it.” – Michael Bierut

Read more from Michael in his 2006 interview with Peter Merholz from Adaptive Path.

This article was submitted by an inspireUX reader. Please help support inspireUX by submitting your favorite quotes or sources!

“Designers don’t actually ‘solve’ problems. They ‘work through’ them. They use non-logical processes that are difficult to express in words but easier to express in action. They use models, mockups, sketches, and stories as their vocabulary. They operate in the space between knowing and doing, prototyping new solutions that arise from their four strengths of empathy, intuition, imagination, and idealism.” – The Designful Company by Marty Neumeier

Check out Marty’s book The Designful Company for his thoughts on “how to build a culture of nonstop innovation.”

“As practitioners, we can’t be content to paint within the lines drawn by managers. We must have the courage and creativity to ask whether our products and systems are useful, and to apply our deep knowledge of craft and medium to define innovative solutions that are more useful.” – Peter Morville

This quote is from Peter’s article “User Experience Design” that describes his well-known “user experience honeycomb.”

“Information architecture is at the very center of the electronic information storm. Without effective means to structure and present the information we produce we are blown about by the vast quantities and the variable quality of that information. IA provides you a deep keel and a strong rudder to surf above the waves of information that buffet you.” – Bob Boiko

This quote is from the Information Architecture Institute’s IA testimonials.

“View content less as a means of transacting relationships and more as an opportunity to make them flourish. With that perspective, you will be more likely to take the time to craft content that cultivates deeper relationships with your customers—and that can transform them into your advocates.” – Colleen Jones

Read Colleen’s article “Using Content to Grow Customer Relationships” for more thoughts on the importance of solid web content.

“I believe that all user experience designers are ‘rotten with imperfection’–every time we get something we lust for, we choose something else to want. User experience design is similar; it does NOT end–once you’ve turned over a great finished product… well, it’s not finished. It’s time to evaluate, update and repeat, because users are pretty ‘rotten with imperfection’, themselves. Embrace the rotten-ness. Don’t look forward to the end of a project, look forward to the next opportunity to improve.” – Russ Unger

Listen to Peachpit’s Author Talk with Russ and Carolyn Chandler, or view Russ’ transcript of his portions of the interview to read more about his thoughts on the importance of user experience design.