“More important than knowing all about the people we design for, we should have a deep understanding of the specific activity we’re supporting with our design… The most important question we can ask is not ‘who is using your software?’ but ‘what are people using your software doing?’.” – Designing for the Social Web by Joshua Porter
Purchase Designing for the Social Web for more insights from Joshua Porter.
“It’s not ‘user’ experience, it’s ‘people’ or ‘customer’ experience. The term ‘user’ can be a barrier to good design.” – Sarah Hanley
This quote is from Sarah’s submission to Johnny Holland’s #uxtip contest, collected via Twitter.
“If we want to create passionate users, we have to help them get better. Nobody’s passionate about things they suck at. If we can help them have richer, deeper, better experiences, we have a chance of making them passionate… If we could help our users be awesome, what would that mean to them?” – Kathy Sierra
This quote is from Kathy’s Ignite presentation “Being Better is Better.” View the video or Joey deVilla’s summary of this presentation for more great insights.
“Human-centered approaches to industrial and interaction design have long focused on studying human behavior to create informed and appropriate designs. A social interaction designer must consider not only people, environment, and existing tools, but also the unseen elements of the system such as social relationships, power dynamics, and cultural rules.” – Gentry Underwood
Read more in Gentry’s article “Social Software: The other ‘Design for Social Impact’.”
“Whatever your team might call it—usability testing, design testing, getting feedback—the most effective input for informed design decisions is data about the behavior and performance of people using a design to reach their own goals.” – Dana Chisnell
This quote is from Dana’s article “Usability Testing Demystified.”
“Coming up with an idea is really just the beginning. It’s the crafting of the idea into a real, working thing that is a truly exciting experience. Making an idea come alive, into something that makes sense, is then made and put into the market, and then connects with people in a meaningful way—that’s the hard part.” – Ted Booth
Read Kicker Studio’s interview with Ted where, among other things, Ted discusses in more depth what excites him about being a designer and why he keeps doing it.