“People should never feel like a failure when using technology. Like the customer, the user is always right. If software crashes, it is the software designer’s fault. If someone can’t find something on a web site, it is the web designer’s fault… The big difference between good and bad designers is how they handle people struggling with their design. Technology serves humans. Humans do not serve technology.” – Joshua Porter
Read Joshua’s article “Five Principles to Design By” here.
“Most digital products today emerge from the development process like a monster emerging from a bubbling tank. Developers, instead of planning and executing with their users in mind, end up creating technological solutions over which they ultimately have little control. Like mad scientists, they fail because they have not imbued their creations with humanity.” – About Face 2.0 by Alan Cooper
Purchase About Face 2.0 for more of Alan’s thoughts on “the essentials of interaction design.”
“Without aesthetic, design is either the humdrum repetition of familiar clichés or a wild scramble for novelty. Without the aesthetic, the computer is but a mindless speed machine, producing effects without substance. Form without relevant content, or content without meaningful form.” – Paul Rand
Read more about the brilliant graphic designer Paul Rand here.
“When we blame the user, we teach them that technology is perfect and that the errors are their own. Because technology is hard to use, we are teaching a generation to be afraid of technology. We are teaching a generation to believe in their own stupidity… It’s not the user’s fault.” – Jono DiCarlo
Read Jono from Mozilla Labs’ article “These things I believe” for his thoughts on software development and user interface design.
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“Technological advances have always been driven more by a mind-set of ‘I can’ than ‘I should’… Technologists love to cram maximum functionality into their products. That’s ‘I can’ thinking, which is driven by peer competition and market forces… But this approach ignores the far more important question of how the consumer will actually use the device… focus on what we should be doing, not just what we can.” – John Maeda
Read John’s “mini manifesto” in this article from Esquire. Thanks to Experientia for sharing this story.
“Saying that people are the focus of user experience is stating the obvious, but when we are deeply engaged in our own work as user experience designers, it can be difficult to constantly remember to keep people at the center of design. For most of us, it’s hard not to get caught up in the skills and techniques that the technologies we work with require and even harder not to want to use technology to solve problems. But as user experience designers, we need to keep our eye on people.” – Whitney Quesenbery
Read Whitney’s article “Why People Matter” for her thoughts on putting people at the center of design.
Catriona Cornett