“We may think that bad design is the ‘enemy’ and that our holy grail is to stomp it out. But displacing poor design should be relatively easy for a trained professional. No, the real enemy is great design. Why? Because great design takes hold, gets traction, and takes on its own inertia—which makes it hard to replace. And replace it we must: Everything reaches its past-due date. Design is no different.” – Bill Buxton

Read more in Bill’s Business Week article “The Problem with Great Ideas.”

1. People on a design team must be as happy to be wrong as right
2. Focus on the experience that the products you design engender
3. Great designers demand great design in everything they do

“The experience is about how we get there, not the landing place.” – Bill Buxton

This quote is from Bill Buxton’s presentation “From the Materialistic to the Experiential: A Changing Perspecitve on Design” at the joint UsabilityNJ – PhillyCHI meeting on April 21, 2009.  Bill was speaking in regards to the importance of finding ways to represent time in our designs, not just the user’s end states.

1. Focus on the experience that the products you design engender
2. It takes great empathy to create a good experience
3. User Experience is about more than just finding the best solution for your users

“Ultimately, we are deluding ourselves if we think that the products that we design are the ‘things’ that we sell, rather than the individual, social and cultural experience that they engender, and the value and impact that they have. Design that ignores this is not worthy of the name.” – Bill Buxton’s “personal mantra”

Bill Buxton’s personal mantra is cited on his website. Visit his site to learn more about his recent work or his upcoming talks and events. Read more from Bill in his book Sketching User Experiences.

1. People on a design team must be as happy to be wrong as right
2. Better connect with your customers by speaking like people, not like machines
3. Focus on the idea of a product experience, instead of experience that only deals with the user

“People on a design team must be as happy to be wrong as right. If their ideas hold up under strong (but fair) criticism, then great, they can proceed with confidence. If their ideas are rejected with good rationale, then they have learned something. A healthy team is made up of people who have the attitude that it is better to learn something new than to be right.” – Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton

Purchase Sketching User Experiences to read Bill’s holistic approach to design as well as an explanation of how to use sketching to your advantage as a designer.

1. Focus on the experience that the products you design engender
2. We must re-think our design process to become melting pots of ideas, perspectives and skills
3. Creating great user experiences takes a multidisciplinary team that shares ownership of UX