Don’t design for everyone. It’s impossible.

Posted on January 9, 2009 by Catriona Cornett • 2 Comments

“Don’t design for everyone. It’s impossible. All you end up doing is designing something that makes everyone unhappy.” – Leisa Reichelt

Read Leisa’s article “The general public myth (or, the whole world is not your user)” here.

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Dan Evans

It’s really interesting to me how this quote contrasts sharply with the previous entry (http://www.inspireux.com/2009/01/07/why-should-we-all-suffer-an-interface-that-is-unusable/):

“If you want to reach the greatest number of users possible, it’s best to write clearly and simply and design your interfaces to be consistent from page to page.”

Really great design manages to embrace both of these things at the same time. It makes the greatest number of people happy because it is simple because it is not designed for everyone. A bit ironic that to reach the most people through design it helps to focus on satisfying fewer people.

I like it.