The true mark of an effective designer is the ability to answer “why?”

“Your work should have purpose—addressing actual, urgent problems that people are facing. Make sure that you can clearly articulate the core of the issue before spending an ounce of time on developing the design. The true mark of an effective designer is the ability to answer ‘why?’. Don’t waste your time solving the wrong problems.” – Whitney Hess

This quote is from Whitney’s excellent article “Guiding Principles for UX Designers.”

1. Design is underpinned by the designer’s ability to not only look, but also to see
2. Design is about more than just solving problems
3. Good designers have the trained ability to represent the world as others expect to see it
4. Make sure that whatever you design is fitting a need in the world and has a purpose
5. A wonderful interface to the wrong features will fail