Starting with UX research, moving to UX wireframing, prototyping and on to UI design and testing, designers should always remember that along all the way they are not just artists, creators, or conceptualists. They are problem solvers. Every decision they make should be based on one simple but vital reason: it has to make the user’s life easier and/or happier.

In the vast majority of cases, neither designers nor customers are the ones around whom all the fuss is going on and all the hard work is being done. It’s all about users. The better we know them and wish to know them more, the better is the result. Period.

Today we decided to publish a little statement. It is done “on behalf of a user” and based on long-term user research and analysis, practical work on diverse UI/UX projects as well as studying new publications about the theme. Here we have gathered some points which designers hear or could have already heard from users. We are talking about the basics right now, but really vital basics which can become a solid foundation for a popular and efficient product or vice versa, if not considered, make even great design solutions shaky and non-efficient.

I’m a User. I want it simple. But not simpler.

No doubt, Albert Einstein had nothing in common with the sphere of UI/UX design in its modern understanding. However, in this particular field, his words “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler” are as applicable as they could only be. This is actually the basis of the efficient user interface design providing positive user experience. For user researcher, designer, and tester it is important to remember that simple doesn’t mean primitive – this is a big trap to be careful about. Making a product simple, you find the shortest and the best way to solve users’ problems or satisfy their needs. A simple product means that you make sophisticated solutions that are invisible to a user and felt as natural as breathing. Simple means helping to do something without additional efforts, confusing, and loads of specific operations. Primitive means oversimplified that often annoys users with their conscious or subconscious feeling of being treated like fools. Keeping this balance is vital for creating a positive user experience.

Randomizer concept

I want it easy to start with.

In most cases, for many users, the first experience is the high noon. The first impression on appearance and first actual interactions is able to engage a user in a long-term relationship with your product. That’s why a designer should make the start of interaction with the product as pleasant, encouraging, user-friendly, and smooth as possible. It is vital to make this stage natural and informative, to show the best features attractive for users and at the same time don’t take too much user’s time for this sort of operation. The solid foundation enabling this feature is understanding what is the core target audience and what are the problems that users will be able to solve with the product. Analyzing the abilities and specific features of the target user will help to find an efficient solution for the fast and easy start of interaction and understanding how the product works. Different kinds of tool-tips and tutorials, wizards, mascots, infographics, animated interactions, and the like can become a good way to make the user feel good and comfortable with your product.

I want it clear and understandable.

Here it’s time to remember the words from one of the famous pioneers in information design and data visualization Edward Tufte who told that “Good design is a lot like clear thinking made visual.” Users should feel understanding what’s going on at every stage of the way. It should be a nice and pleasant walk instead of hard and stressful going through the wild. And this particular task is probably the most important aspect of the designer’s job.

It doesn’t mean that every design should be accomplished as plain as a day – without the analysis of the target audience, its needs, wishes, and habits you risk making it boring. Sometimes a bit of challenge, the elements of gamification or problem solving and the like can engage the user; however, all of them should still be doable and acceptable.
Moreover, every microinteraction should provide the user with fast and clear feedback. That is actually the way how the product communicates with the user. Pushing the button or uploading the file, adding a follower, or searching the necessary item users should clearly see how the system has reacted and what is the next step. Other aspects to consider in this perspective are the issues of readability, navigation, conventions, affordances, and signifiers.

Blog App

I want it helpful.

In the vast majority of situations, people see the technologies, in particular applications and websites, as a helping hand in their everyday life and/or professional routine. This help can be totally diverse: from literal assistance in buying things, ordering tickets, connecting with friends or saving important data, to a bit more metaphoric, like helping with good and suitable ways of entertainment, chatting, self-improvement, aesthetic satisfaction. As soon as users see what kind of help your product provides to them, they are ready for the next steps. This is the good ground for enhancing positive user experience.

One more aspect of helping is forestalling and preventing possible user’s problems, mistakes, and points of confusion in the process of interaction with the product. Efficient and intuitive navigation, fast and clear feedback already mentioned above as well as various tips, auto search, prompts and other stuff of this sort could make the experience natural and help the user to avoid negative emotions.

I want it useful.

The first and foremost thing behind any product is providing some useful features. It’s easy to say that there are a lot of applications and websites which have no purely practical use and exist only for entertainment or other “not-serious” aims. It is one more huge trap. Entertainment, rest, aesthetic pleasure, presentation, collecting and loads of other things or activities which seem to be “not-serious”, “not-useful”, “time-wasting” and so on, are also as important for the person’s full life scope and routine as “serious” and “business-like” stuff.

When adults see how the kid is fiddling with the simple set of building blocks, most of them do not realize that this kind of “non-serious stuff” is highly useful for the child’s development and, what is more, the correct design of the blocks can influence and improve this process. The same happens with applications and websites. To create a successful product, it’s needed to find not only well-known unique selling points but also unique useful points. No matter what kind of product is created and designed, they always exist. That is why user research and analysis is an important stage of designing an effective user interface. It helps to find the problems that could be solved and the wishes that could be satisfied with the product, which is the most important feature for retaining the user. Nothing can make the users stay with the product is they do not see the personal interest and benefits.

Library Widget

I want it fast.

Creating designs, it’s important to consider what are going to be technical and physical conditions of the product use. Out of this data, designers and then developers should make important decisions on how to make design working fast. And it’s not only about the fast interactions and navigation enabling a user to find the quick way of transition to anything potentially important in a couple of swipes or clicks. It’s also about the time of loading the pages, screens, animations, complex images, etc. No user is going to keep around your product for long if he or she needs to waste their time waiting for downloading. It is forgiven in exclusive cases but not on a regular basis. Neglecting this aspect can kill even the product of great importance and functionality.

I want it updated.

In the fast-paced world of technology, it is vital to stay tuned and trim the sails to the wind. Certainly, the power of habit is a great thing retaining users, but a regular shade of minor changes aimed at improving usability supports the feeling of refreshment in experience.

There are, nevertheless, two things to keep in mind about this aspect. Firstly, the changes should improve and support positive experience via usability or attractiveness. Secondly, adding something new, in most cases, it’s better not to do it as a bright revolution bringing a totally new life, since for a particular segment of users it can become a shock and will be the reason of rejection. Being careful, user-friendly, and consistent is a great policy of changes.

Cinema App

I want it nice and stylish.

The famous guru of usability Don Norman once mentioned that “It’s not enough that we build products that function, that are understandable and usable, we also need to build products that bring joy and excitement, pleasure and fun, and yes, beauty to people’s lives”. This is actually a philosophy we support here in the studio.

There are lots of tips, proverbs, and sayings assuring that wise people do not judge the book by its cover, but in reality, a good dress is still the card of invitation. Certainly, this sort of good dress for the app or web will mean nothing if it is empty in content, useless and not solving any problems. However, if the product is not attractive, the users will not even turn their eyes to your product. They will not identify it among the others in AppStore or PlayMarket. They will not feel that flash of interest and curiosity that is the start of so many great meetings, events, and relationships, including choosing the products for everyday use.

So, appearance really matters as it stands among the most important factors encouraging the user to try your product. Moreover, beautiful, attractive, and appropriate to the target audience, nicely done and consistent visual style of all the design elements satisfies aesthetic needs and beautifies everyday life. Practice shows that this is a great factor in retaining a great deal of users.

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I want to have a choice.

The last but not least position here is the choice ability. There are loads of discussions on simplification and unification of UI/UX solutions in the design sphere, in which we often read that designs should be minimalist and limited to activating only basic and necessary operations. Application or website should do only what is really necessary and the additional stuff is always the element of distraction, they say. Users do not need complex animations, users do not want funny illustrations, users do not wish bright and unexpected color combinations, they say. And so on, and so forth, here and there.

There are loads of arguments and proofs, examples and debates, criticizing and preaching. The only thing is missed. There is no user behind all this stuff. A user, who can be totally and absolutely different, who can have millions of different preferences, likes and dislikes, various cultural and educational backgrounds, diverse environments, and abilities to use technology. And all of them, as well as in any sphere of human activity, are keen to have a choice looking for the applications and websites. Users are those who really benefit from the diversity of offers and designs on the market of digital products. They really adore the opportunity to choose. And hope not to see it killed with ubiquitous unification.

Stats Concept 

No doubt, the topic is really deep, so today’s post has been concentrated on the major basics leaving more details for further posts. However, considering those factors provides good support in creating efficient UI/UX design solutions. Designing for users, we should keep a user and only a user as the highest priority. This is the best way to get all the features of efficient and popular products via usability, utility, and desirability.

Useful Articles

How to Make User Interface Readable

Visual Hierarchy: Effective UI Content Organization

3C of UI Design: Color, Contrast, Content

How to Improve Web Scannability

Gestalt Theory for UX Design: Principle of Proximity

Gestalt Theory for Efficient UX: Principle of Similarity

Negative Space in Design: Tips and Best Practices

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение UI/UX Design. On Behalf of a User появились сначала на Design4Users.

Here we offer you 20 TED-talks all with the descriptions given on the TED website. Most of them are already classic, sometimes even could be called legendary, and that makes them even more precious as they have been successfully checked with the time and practice. The ability to analyze take the best from the past usually broadens the creative horizons and becomes a solid foundation from innovative thinking. We also added some prominent thoughts full of wisdom and practical experience. So, let’s move on!

Don Norman: 3 ways good design makes you happy

In this talk from 2003, design critic Don Norman turns his incisive eye toward beauty, fun, pleasure and emotion, as he looks at design that makes people happy. He names the three emotional cues that a well-designed product must hit to succeed.

Some thoughts to remember:

The middle level of processing is the behavioral level and that’s actually where most of our stuff gets done. Visceral is subconscious, you’re unaware of it. Behavioral is subconscious, you’re unaware of it. Almost everything we do is subconscious. I’m walking around the stage – I’m not attending to the control of my legs. I’m doing a lot; most of my talk is subconscious; it has been rehearsed and thought about a lot. Most of what we do is subconscious. Automatic behavior – skilled behavior – is subconscious, controlled by the behavioral side. And behavioral design is all about feeling in control, which includes usability, understanding – but also the feel and heft.

Emotion is all about acting; emotion is really about acting. It’s being safe in the world. Cognition is about understanding the world, emotion is about interpreting it — saying good, bad, safe, dangerous, and getting us ready to act, which is why the muscles tense or relax. And that’s why we can tell the emotion of somebody else — because their muscles are acting, subconsciously, except that we’ve evolved to make the facial muscles really rich with emotion.

James Patten: The best computer interface? Maybe … your hands

“The computer is an incredibly powerful means of creative expression,” says designer and TED Fellow James Patten. But right now, we interact with computers, mainly, by typing and tapping. In this nifty talk and demo, Patten imagines a more visceral, physical way to bring your thoughts and ideas to life in the digital world, taking the computer interface off the screen and putting it into your hands.

Some thoughts to remember:

And when you think about it, this makes a lot of sense, that using specialized physical objects would help people use an interface more easily. I mean, our hands and our minds are optimized to think about and interact with tangible objects.

Margaret Gould Stewart: How giant websites design for you (and a billion others, too)

Facebook’s “like” and “share” buttons are seen 22 billion times a day, making them some of the most-viewed design elements ever created. Margaret Gould Stewart, Facebook’s director of product design, outlines three rules for design at such a massive scale — one so big that the tiniest of tweaks can cause global outrage, but also so large that the subtlest of improvements can positively impact the lives of many.

Some thoughts to remember:

Now, the first thing that you need to know about designing at scale is that the little things really matter.

The next thing that you need to understand as a principle is that when you introduce change, you need to do it extraordinarily carefully. Now I often have joked that I spend almost as much time designing the introduction of change as I do the change itself, and I’m sure that we can all relate to that when something that we use a lot changes and then we have to adjust. The fact is, people can become very efficient at using bad design, and so even if the change is good for them in the long run, it’s still incredibly frustrating when it happens, and this is particularly true with user-generated content platforms,because people can rightfully claim a sense of ownership. It is, after all, their content.

Matthew Carter: My life in typefaces

Pick up a book, magazine or screen, and more than likely you’ll come across some typography designed by Matthew Carter. In this charming talk, the man behind typefaces such as Verdana, Georgia and Bell Centennial (designed just for phone books — remember them?), takes us on a spin through a career focused on the very last pixel of each letter of a font.

Some thoughts to remember:

You know, at times of technical innovation, designers want to be influenced by what’s in the air. We want to respond. We want to be pushed into exploring something new.

Aris Venetikidis: Making sense of maps

Map designer Aris Venetikidis is fascinated by the maps we draw in our minds as we move around a city — less like street maps, more like schematics or wiring diagrams, abstract images of relationships between places. How can we learn from these mental maps to make better real ones? As a test case, he remakes the notorious Dublin bus map. (Filmed at TEDxDublin)

Some thoughts to remember:

So for a successful public transport map, we should not stick to accurate representation, but design them in the way our brains work.

Stefan Sagmeister: Happiness by Design

Graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister takes the audience on a whimsical journey through moments of his life that made him happy — and notes how many of these moments have to do with good design.

Some thoughts to remember:

You know, one is: just working without pressure. Then: working concentrated, without being frazzled. Or, as Nancy said before, like really immerse oneself into it. Try not to get stuck doing the same thing — or try not get stuck behind the computer all day. This is, you know, related to it: getting out of the studio. Then, of course, trying to, you know, work on things where the content is actually important for me. And being able to enjoy the end results.

Tony Fadell: The first secret of design is… noticing

As human beings, we get used to “the way things are” really fast. But for designers, the way things are is an opportunity … Could things be better? How? In this funny, breezy talk, the man behind the iPod and the Nest thermostat shares some of his tips for noticing — and driving — change.

Some thoughts to remember:

Why do we get used to everyday things? Well as human beings, we have limited brain power. And so our brains encode the everyday things we do into habits so we can free up space to learn new things. It’s a process called habituation and it’s one of the most basic ways, as humans, we learn.

My first tip is to look broader. You see, when you’re tackling a problem, sometimes, there are a lot of steps that lead up to that problem. And sometimes, a lot of steps after it. If you can take a step back and look broader, maybe you can change some of those boxes before the problem. Maybe you can combine them. Maybe you can remove them altogether to make that better.

Our challenge is to wake up each day and say, “How can I experience the world better?”

Chris Urmson: How a driverless car sees the road

Statistically, the least reliable part of the car is … the driver. Chris Urmson heads up Google’s driverless car program, one of several efforts to remove humans from the driver’s seat. He talks about where his program is right now, and shares fascinating footage that shows how the car sees the road and makes autonomous decisions about what to do next.

Some thoughts to remember:

The better the technology gets, the less reliable the driver is going to get.So by just making the cars incrementally smarter, we’re probably not going to see the wins we really need.

…it’s not to say that the driver assistance systems aren’t going to be incredibly valuable. They can save a lot of lives in the interim, but to see the transformative opportunity to help someone like Steve get around, to really get to the end case in safety, to have the opportunity to change our cities and move parking out and get rid of these urban craters we call parking lots, it’s the only way to go.

David Carson: Design and discovery

Great design is a never-ending journey of discovery — for which it helps to pack a healthy sense of humor. Sociologist and surfer-turned-designer David Carson walks through a gorgeous (and often quite funny) slide deck of his work and found images.

Some thoughts to remember:

I’m a big believer in the emotion of design, and the message that’s sent before somebody begins to read,before they get the rest of the information; what is the emotional response they get to the product, to the story, to the painting — whatever it is.

Why not experiment? Why not have some fun? Why not put some of yourself into the work? And when I was teaching, I used to always ask the students, What’s the definition of a good job? And as teachers, after you get all the answers, you like to give them the correct answer. And the best one I’ve heard — I’m sure some of you have heard this –the definition of a good job is: If you could afford to — if money wasn’t an issue — would you be doing that same work? And if you would, you’ve got a great job. And if you wouldn’t, what the heck are you doing? You’re going to be dead a really long time.

Philippe Starck: Design and destiny

Designer Philippe Starck — with no pretty slides to show — spends 18 minutes reaching for the very roots of the question “Why design?” Listen carefully for one perfect mantra for all of us, genius or not.

Some thoughts to remember:

And here is something: nobody is obliged to be a genius, but everybody is obliged to participate.

With billions of people who have been born, worked, lived and died before us, these people who have worked so much, we have now bring beautiful things, beautiful gifts, we know so many things. We can say to our children, OK, done, that was our story. That passed.Now you have a duty: invent a new story. Invent a new poetry. The only rule is, we have not to have any idea about the next story. We give you white pages. Invent. We give you the best tools, the best tools, and now, do it.

David Kelley: Human-centered design

IDEO’s David Kelley says that product design has become much less about the hardware and more about the user experience. He shows video of this new, broader approach, including footage from the Prada store in New York.

Some thoughts to remember:

…it’s really exciting that we’re taking a more human-centered approach to design, that we’re including behaviors and personalities in the things we do, and I think this is great. Designers are more trusted and more integrated into the business strategy of companies

Linda Hill: How to manage for collective creativity

What’s the secret to unlocking the creativity hidden inside your daily work, and giving every great idea a chance? Harvard professor Linda Hill, co-author of “Collective Genius,” has studied some of the world’s most creative companies to come up with a set of tools and tactics to keep great ideas flowing — from everyone in the company, not just the designated “creatives.”

Some thoughts to remember:

Leading innovation is not about creating a vision, and inspiring others to execute it. But what do we mean by innovation? An innovation is anything that is both new and useful. It can be a product or service. It can be a process or a way of organizing. It can be incremental, or it can be breakthrough. We have a pretty inclusive definition.

Innovation is not about solo genius, it’s about collective genius.

What we know is, at the heart of innovation is a paradox. You have to unleash the talents and passions of many people and you have to harness them into a work that is actually useful. Innovation is a journey. It’s a type of collaborative problem solving, usually among people who have different expertise and different points of view.

Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

Some thoughts to remember:

I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original — if you’re not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this. We stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities.

We know three things about intelligence. One, it’s diverse. We think about the world in all the ways that we experience it. We think visually, we think in sound, we think kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms, we think in movement. Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the interactions of a human brain,as we heard yesterday from a number of presentations, intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn’t divided into compartments. In fact, creativity — which I define as the process of having original ideas that have value — more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.

Young-ha Kim: Be an artist, right now!

Why do we ever stop playing and creating? With charm and humor, celebrated Korean author Young-ha Kim invokes the world’s greatest artists to urge you to unleash your inner child — the artist who wanted to play forever. (Filmed at TEDxSeoul.)

Some thoughts to remember:

We don’t know why we should be artists, but we have many reasons why we can’t be. Why do people instantly resist the idea of associating themselves with art? Perhaps you think art is for the greatly gifted or for the thoroughly and professionally trained. And some of you may think you’ve strayed too far from art. Well you might have, but I don’t think so. This is the theme of my talk today. We are all born artists.

David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization

David McCandless turns complex data sets (like worldwide military spending, media buzz, Facebook status updates) into beautiful, simple diagrams that tease out unseen patterns and connections. Good design, he suggests, is the best way to navigate information glut — and it may just change the way we see the world.

Some thoughts to remember:

The eye is exquisitely sensitive to patterns in variations in color, shape and pattern. It loves them, and it calls them beautiful. It’s the language of the eye. If you combine the language of the eye with the language of the mind, which is about words and numbers and concepts, you start speaking two languages simultaneously, each enhancing the other. So, you have the eye, and then you drop in the concepts. And that whole thing — it’s two languages both working at the same time.

Aaron Koblin: Visualizing ourselves … with crowd-sourced data

Artist Aaron Koblin takes vast amounts of data — and at times vast numbers of people — and weaves them into stunning visualizations. From elegant lines tracing airline flights to landscapes of cell phone data, from a Johnny Cash video assembled from crowd-sourced drawings to the “Wilderness Downtown” video that customizes for the user, his works brilliantly explore how modern technology can make us more human.

Some thoughts to remember:

Our lives are being driven by data, and the presentation of that data is an opportunity for us to make some amazing interfaces that tell great stories.

…an interface can be a powerful narrative device. And as we collect more and more personally and socially relevant data, we have an opportunity, and maybe even an obligation, to maintain the humanity and tell some amazing stories as we explore and collaborate together.

Golan Levin: Art that looks back at you

Golan Levin, an artist and engineer, uses modern tools — robotics, new software, cognitive research — to make artworks that surprise and delight. Watch as sounds become shapes, bodies create paintings, and a curious eye looks back at the curious viewer.

Some thoughts to remember:

I’m an artist, and I’m really interested in expanding the vocabulary of human action, and basically empowering people through interactivity. I want people to discover themselves as actors, as creative actors, by having interactive experiences.

Milton Glaser: Using design to make ideas new

From the TED archives: The legendary graphic designer Milton Glaser dives deep into a new painting inspired by Piero della Francesca. From here, he muses on what makes a convincing poster, by breaking down an idea and making it new.

Some thoughts to remember:

Sometimes, in the middle of a resistant problem, I write down things that I know about it. But you can see the beginning of an idea there, because you can see the word “new” emerging from the “old.” That’s what happens. There’s a relationship between the old and the new; the new emerges from the context of the old.

Tim Brown: Designers — think big!

Tim Brown says the design profession has a bigger role to play than just creating nifty, fashionable little objects. He calls for a shift to local, collaborative, participatory “design thinking” — starting with the example of 19th-century design thinker Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Some thoughts to remember:

Systems thinkers who were reinventing the world, to a priesthood of folks in black turtlenecks and designer glasses working on small things. As our industrial society matured, so design became a profession and it focused on an ever smaller canvas until it came to stand for aesthetics, image and fashion.

So if human need is the place to start, then design thinking rapidly moves on to learning by making. Instead of thinking about what to build, building in order to think. Now, prototypes speed up the process of innovation, because it is only when we put our ideas out into the world that we really start to understand their strengths and weaknesses. And the faster we do that, the faster our ideas evolve.

Richard Seymour: How beauty feels

A story, a work of art, a face, a designed object — how do we tell that something is beautiful? And why does it matter so much to us? Designer Richard Seymour explores our response to beauty and the surprising power of objects that exhibit it.

Some thoughts to remember:

Form is function. It informs, it tells us, it supplies us answers before we’ve even thought about it. And so I’ve stopped using words like “form,” and I’ve stopped using words like “function” as a designer. What I try to pursue now is the emotional functionality of things. Because if I can get that right, I can make them wonderful, and I can make them repeatedly wonderful.

As we can see, the set of speeches is quite diverse: some of them are giving the examples of designs, some unveil the life and routine case of famous experts, some bring general ideas on creativity and design process aspects. Anyway, they enrich us with the ideas which bring us closer to the user, to creating efficient design and taking everything possible from our natural creativity.

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение 20 TED-Talks for Designers. Inspiration Full of Thoughts появились сначала на Design4Users.

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)

Your app might be a technological marvel, but don’t forget that it’s people who need to interact with it. (UXPin team)

People ignore design that ignores people. (Frank Chimero)

Feedback is the heart of interaction. If user interaction is a conversation between your user and the product, then your product better participate in a friendly, interesting, and helpful manner. (UXPin team)

In an ideal world, a user would remember every function after only a single use, but we do not live in idealism. The reality is that familiarity and intuition must be consciously designed into the interface. (UXPin team)

Our opportunity, as designers, is to learn how to handle the complexity, rather than shy away from it, and to realize that the big art of design is to make complicated things simple.  (Tim Parsey)

It is easy to fail when designing an interactive experience. Designers fail when they do not know the audience, integrate the threads of content and context, welcome the public properly, or make clear what the experience is and what the audience’s role in it will be. (Edwin Schlossberg)

Good design is a lot like clear thinking made visual. (Edward Tufte)

HCI draws on many disciplines, as we shall see, but it is in computer science and systems design that it must be accepted as a central concern. For all the other disciplines it can be a specialism, albeit one that provides crucial input; for systems design it is an essential part of the design process. From this perspective, HCI involves the design, implementation and evaluation of interactive systems in the context of the user’s task and work. (Alan Dix, Janet E. Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, Russell Beale)

To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master. (Milton Glaser)

Don’t make something unless it’s both necessary and useful. But if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful. (Josh Porter)

The details are not the details. They make the design. (Charles Eames)

Good design is design that changes behavior for the better. I think it needs to take into account the context of the environment, of the human condition, the culture, and then attempt to make the things you do—make us do them better, make us do better things. It encourages us to change the way that we live.  (Jon Kolko)

It’s not enough that we build products that function, that are understandable and usable, we also need to build products that bring joy and excitement, pleasure and fun, and yes, beauty to people’s lives.  (Don Norman)

Good UI design gives users a comprehensible sense of power that consistently helps them feel in control. (Jim Nielsen)

In situations of stress, people will be less able to cope with complex problem solving or managing difficult interfaces, whereas if people are relaxed they will be more forgiving of limitations in the design. This does not give us an excuse to design bad interfaces but does suggest that if we build interfaces that promote positive responses – for example by using aesthetics or reward – then they are likely be more successful. (Alan Dix, Janet E. Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, Russell Beale)

When we interact with computers, what are we trying to achieve? Consider what happens when we interact with each other – we are either passing information to other people, or receiving information from them. Often, the information we receive is in response to the information that we have recently imparted to them, and we may then respond to that. Interaction is therefore a process of information transfer. Relating this to the electronic computer, the same principles hold: interaction is a process of information transfer, from the user to the computer and from the computer to the user.  (Alan Dix, Janet E. Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, Russell Beale)

Interaction is the essence of all user experiences. It is the conversation between your product and your user, and if the conversation is boring, your user will leave and talk to someone more interesting. (UXPin team)

Interaction design isn’t about how interfaces behave, it’s about how people behave, and then adapting technology accordingly. It’s a two-part challenge: first, you must know your target users on a level that reveals what they like and what they expect; second, you must figure out how to satisfy those needs given your technological constraints. (UXPin team)

To our human minds, computers behave less like rocks and trees than they do like humans, so we unconsciously treat them like people…. In other words, humans have special instincts that tell them how to behave around other sentient beings, and as soon as any object exhibits sufficient cognitive function, those instincts kick in and we react as though we were interacting with another sentient human being. (Alan Cooper)

If we want users to like our software we should design it to behave like a likeable person: respectful, generous and helpful. (Alan Cooper)

A powerful tool in the early stages of developing scenarios is to pretend the interface is magic. If your persona has goals and the product has magical powers to meet them, how simple could the interaction be? This kind of thinking is useful to help designers look outside the box. (Alan Cooper)

User-centered design means understanding what your users need, how they think, and how they behave – and incorporating that understanding into every aspect of your process. (Jesse James Garrett)

As much as we may want to withdraw into a world of pure problem solving, we have to acknowledge that the most successful architectures are the ones you can actually convince someone to implement. (Jesse James Garrett)

Designers shooting for usable is like a chef shooting for edible. (Aarron Walter)

Problems with visual design can turn users off so quickly that they never discover all the smart choices you made with navigation or interaction design. (Jesse James Garrett)

Good design, when it’s done well, becomes invisible. It’s only when it’s done poorly that we notice it. Think of it like a room’s air conditioning. We only notice it when it’s too hot, too cold, making too much noise, or the unit is dripping on us. Yet, if the air conditioning is perfect, nobody say anything and we focus, instead, on the task at hand. (Jared Spool)

Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves. (Steve Jobs)

Beauty and brains, pleasure and usability – they should go hand in hand. (Donald A. Norman)

To design an easy-to-use interface, pay attention to what users do, not what they say. Self-reported claims are unreliable, as are user speculations about future behavior. (Jakob Nielsen)

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение 30 Quotes on User-Centered Interaction Design появились сначала на Design4Users.

“People think that design is styling. Design is not style. It’s not about giving shape to the shell and not giving a damn about the guts. Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world didn’t know it was missing.” (Paola Antonelli)

“Design is about making things good (and then better) and right (and fantastic) for the people who use and encounter them.” (Matt Beale)

“There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence.” (Massimo Vignelli)

“Bad design is smoke, while good design is a mirror.” (Juan-Carlos Fernandez)

“Define what the product will do before you design how the product will do it.” (Alan Cooper)

“No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it.” (Alan Cooper)

“If we want users to like our software we should design it to behave like a likeable person: respectful, generous and helpful.” (Alan Cooper)

“Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don’t have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen based on earlier experience.” (Jakob Nielsen)

“Even the best designers produce successful products only if their designs solve the right problems. A wonderful interface to the wrong features will fail.” (Jakob Nielsen)

“…pay attention to what users do, not what they say.” (Jakob Nielsen)

“On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. If users get lost on a website, they leave. If a website’s information is hard to read or doesn’t answer users’ key questions, they leave. Note a pattern here?” (Jakob Nielsen)

“Usability is like love. You have to care, you have to listen, and you have to be willing to change. You’ll make mistakes along the way, but that’s where growth and forgiveness come in.” (Jeffrey Zeldman)

“Art is an idea that has found its perfect visual expression. And design is the vehicle by which this expression is made possible. Art is a noun, and design is a noun and also a verb. Art is a product and design is a process. Design is the foundation of all the arts.” (Paul Rand)

“Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions; there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.” (Paul Rand)

“Designing a product is designing a relationship.” (Steve Rogers)

“Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop.” (Jeffrey Zeldman)

“A good designer can create a design that accommodates all the constraints and still delivers an elegant, satisfying experience to the user. A great designer can go beyond this and create a design that demonstrates that some of those constraints weren’t really there to begin with.” (Jesse James Garrett)

“Problems with visual design can turn users off so quickly that they never discover all the smart choices you made with navigation or interaction design.” (Jesse James Garrett)

“User-centered design means understanding what your users need, how they think, and how they behave – and incorporating that understanding into every aspect of your process.” (Jesse James Garrett)

“Good design, when it’s done well, becomes invisible. It’s only when it’s done poorly that we notice it. Think of it like a room’s air conditioning. We only notice it when it’s too hot, too cold, making too much noise, or the unit is dripping on us. Yet, if the air conditioning is perfect, nobody say anything and we focus, instead, on the task at hand.” (Jared Spool)

“Intuitive design happens when current knowledge is the same as the target knowledge.” (Jared Spool)

“Users do not care about what is inside the box, as long as the box does what they need done.” (Jef Raskin)

“What users want is convenience and results.” (Jef Raskin)

“An interface is humane if it is responsive to human needs and considerate of human frailties.” (Jef Raskin)

“Design is intelligence made visible.”  (Alina Wheeler)

“I never design a building before I’ve seen the site and met the people who will be using it.” (Frank Lloyd Wright)

“UI design is much more than just fitting together the puzzle pieces of a layout. To design an interface is to create function from form, to create structure while simplifying, and to illuminate while delighting.” (Jerry Cao)

“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” (Milton Glaser)

“The real issue is not talent as an independent element, but talent in relationship to will, desire, and persistence. Talent without these things vanishes and even modest talent with those characteristics grows.” (Milton Glaser)

“Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” (Robert L. Peters)

Originally collected for Tubik Blog

Сообщение 30 Eternal Quotes from Design Experts появились сначала на Design4Users.

In one of the earlier articles with tips for beginners in the app and web design, our first piece of advice based on practical experience was rather simple. The first and really crucial thing may sound quite primitive: you should make sure that you really want to make it your job. There are lots of people who, being great artists, deeply creative, and inspired, get broken by the necessity to work systematically with strict deadlines and loads of requirements and wishes (sometimes illogical or not-too-professional) from the customers. Clear up the nature of your job: the designer is not a pure artist free of obligations and fully devoted to creativity. Nope. In different stages of your project, you’re also going to be a researcher, an analyst, a time manager, and the like. Bear in mind all those things from the very start of the way.

For those who have made this vital decision, today we would like to recommend a useful and helpful book “Design Is a Job” by witty expert Mike Monteiro, the co-founder of Mule Design. The book reveals all the stages of a design job, including communication with clients, organization of the process, drawing contracts, working in teams of colleagues, and so on and so forth. The author doesn’t try to make the profession look like magic: he is deeply and sometimes sharply honest about not only the benefits but also pitfalls. In the foreword to the book, Erik Spiekermann says: “Contrary to popular belief, designers are not artists. We employ artistic methods to visualize thinking and process, but, unlike artists, we work to solve a client’s problem, not present our own view of the world.” The ideas shared by Mike Monteiro are deeply practical in supporting this thesis. It is not about the design process inside only, it is more about the outer part of the design world, full of clients, requirements, goals, metrics, iterations, presentations, and discussions.

Here we would like to share a new set of design quotes that we grabbed from this book for Tubik Studio Quotes Collection. This time it will be fully loaded with honest and informative thoughts by Mike Monteiro. Join in!

A designer requires honest feedback and real criticism, and that’s not going to happen in a realm where colleagues or clients are worried about crushing the spirit of a magical being. The sparkly fog of affirmation gets in the way.

Clients will always ask you to make their logo bigger, prescribe solutions, and ask you to do things that will make you smack your forehead. You can roll your eyes at how much they don’t understand about design or you can roll up your sleeves and begin practising your craft by helping them clarify what they need.

If you can stand in front of a client completely confident and explain why you are worth the amount you quoted, you should charge it.

The general rule is to involve as many people as possible in early discussions, and make that number as small as possible once you go into review cycles.

Anyone who hires you because they thought you could do the job and then doesn’t let you do it has lost respect for either you or the design process.

Whether you are helping to launch a new business from scratch, or making incremental changes to an existing product, or something in between, any design task you undertake must serve a goal. It’s your job to find out what those goals are.

Successful design balances convention—familiar forms, terms, and interactions—and novelty—new forms to engage and delight the users, in the hope they will stick around a bit longer and maybe buy their pants here instead of somewhere else. As long as you remember that those new forms must serve the goals of the business. Otherwise, they’re just novelty.

A good client will trust your process as long as they have transparency into it, can see results, and you’re willing to bend a little here and there. Without breaking.

A designer who does not present his or her own work is not a designer. Presenting the work, explaining the rationale, answering questions, and eliciting feedback are part of the design toolkit. If you sit at your desk while someone else presents work to the client, you don’t get to complain about the feedback. The failure was yours.

Clients are the lifeblood of a healthy business. They are the oxygen in your bloodstream that keeps everything going. No matter how good you are at what you do, without someone willing to pay you for that service you will have to close your doors.

If you’re trying to decide between two design firms that seem equally talented, the one that came with a referral has a solid advantage. And that vetting goes both ways—a client who is well-socialized and has a good reputation in a large network is more likely to be a great client. In most cases, you’re going to be as sceptical of a client who hires a designer from an ad as they are of the designer who answered that ad.

…you should aim to be pleasant to work with, as everyone would rather work with someone pleasant than with an asshole. But no one wants to work with someone who’s faking it. Doing good work often requires a few hard conversations.

The biggest myth ever perpetuated in the design field is that good design sells itself. (The second is that Copperplate is a legitimate typeface.) Design can’t speak for itself any more than a tamale can take off its own husk. You’re presenting a solution to a business problem, and you’re presenting it as an advocate for the end users. The client needs to know that you’ve studied the problem, understood its complexities, and that you’re working from that understanding.

Ultimately, your job is to make the client feel confident in the design. Confidence is as much of a deliverable as anything you’re handing over in the project.

There’s a difference between being enjoyable to work with and being “nice.” Being nice means worrying about keeping up the appearance of harmony at the expense of being straightforward and fully engaged. Sometimes you need to tell a client they’re making the wrong call.

Of course, being the most pleasant person in the world won’t help your cause if the work isn’t good. But don’t make the mistake of thinking the quality of your work by itself will be a shining beacon that pulls clients near.

You can do a lot to show a client how valuable time is in how you comport yourself throughout the project. Run your meetings and work sessions efficiently. Come in prepared. Don’t run over. Don’t hang out. Don’t train clients to think you’ve got extra time on your hands.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, stay in good communication with your clients at all times. They will accept your process as long as you are showing them results. Make sure to set their expectations correctly as to what is happening when.

Over the years the one constant that we’ve been able to rely on is that how a potential client behaves in the business development process is exactly how they will behave during the project. Trust your gut.

Never work for free. Any work you take on for free will get pushed aside for paying work. That does neither you nor the client any favors. Neither of you will respect each other’s time. If the situation merits it, work at a discounted rate. But submit a budget showing the actual rate, with the discount applied. Let the client know the value of what they’re getting.

Not knowing the design language doesn’t make someone a bad client.

Only you know the value of your time. (Hint: it is greater than $0.) But the value of your work to a particular client depends on what the client has to gain from that work. And the client is not buying time from you. They are buying work. The value of that work is what you need to charge them for.

As we tell potential clients when they ask us what their site will look like: “Oh, we have no damn idea. But we know what the process is for finding out.”

But much like the best umbrella is the umbrella you have on you, the best process is always the one you’re having success with. Don’t fall for trendy processes. If the one you’re using works for you, go with it.

You’re not going to ask for permission to do things your way. You’re going to convince clients that your way works by showing them how you will use your process to meet their goals. And you’ll back this up by showing them how many times it’s worked in the past.

Throughout a project you may have to remind a client multiple times that they agreed to follow your process. And throughout a project you will have to convince a client that your process is actually on target to get them the results they need. There will be hand-holding. There will be tough love. But above all, you will have to stand your ground and stick to what you know works.

…just make it a habit never to speak ill of your clients. They’re paying your bills. And putting their livelihood in your hands. They’re good people.

Working with other (talented) designers makes you a better designer, and is essential to your professional development, especially early in your career. There’s simply no better way to learn your craft than to watch someone else practice it.

Not only can a designer change the world, a designer should. This is the best job in the world! Let’s do it right.

Originally collected for Tubik Blog

Welcome to watch 10 TED-talks for creative people

Welcome to check out the set of 30 Eternal Quotes from Design Experts and 30 Bright Quotes About Creativity

Сообщение Design Is a Job. 30 Honest Quotes by Mike Monteiro появились сначала на Design4Users.

Ten wise tips by Steve Krug

If you want a great site, you’ve got to test. After you’ve worked on a site for even a few weeks, you can’t see it freshly anymore. You know too much. The only way to find out if it really works is to test it. (Steve Krug)

Designers love subtle cues, because subtlety is one of the traits of sophisticated design. But Web users are generally in such a hurry that they routinely miss subtle cues. (Steve Krug)

The problem is there are no simple “right” answers for most Web design questions (at least not for the important ones). What works is good, integrated design that fills a need—carefully thought out, well executed, and tested. (Steve Krug)

Experts are rarely insulted by something that is clear enough for beginners. Everybody appreciates clarity. (Steve Krug)

If something requires a large investment of time—or looks like it will—it’s less likely to be used. (Steve Krug)

Your primary role should be to share what you know, not to tell people how things should be done. (Steve Krug)

Another needless source of question marks over people’s heads is links and buttons that aren’t obviously clickable. As a user, I should never have to devote a millisecond of thought to whether things are clickable—or not. (Steve Krug)

Making every page or screen self-evident is like having good lighting in a store: it just makes everything seem better. (Steve Krug)

Nothing important should ever be more than two clicks away. (Steve Krug)

…usability is about people and how they understand and use things, not about technology. (Steve Krug)

Ten wise tips by Donald Norman

What makes something simple or complex? It’s not the number of dials or controls or how many features it has. It is whether the person using the device has a good conceptual model of how it operates. (Donald Norman)

It’s the total experience that matters. And that starts from when you first hear about a product… experience is more based upon memory than reality. If your memory of the product is wonderful, you will excuse all sorts of incidental things. (Donald Norman)

The whole point of human-centered design is to tame complexity, to turn what would appear to be a complicated tool into one that fits the task, that is understandable, usable, enjoyable. (Donald Norman)

Attractive things work better… When you wash and wax a car, it drives better, doesn’t it? Or at least feels like it does. (Donald Norman)

Any time you see signs or labels added to a device, it is an indication of bad design: a simple lock should not require instructions. (Donald Norman)

Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating. (Donald Norman)

Everything has a personality: everything sends an emotional signal. Even where this was not the intention of the designer, the people who view the website infer personalities and experience emotions. (Donald Norman)

Designers know too much about their product to be objective judges: the features they have come to love and prefer may not be understood or preferred by the future customers. (Donald Norman)

Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible. (Donald Norman)

Engineers and designers simultaneously know too much and too little. They know too much about the technology and too little about how other people live their lives and do their activities. (Donald Norman)

Originally collected for Tubik Blog

Check more design expert quotes about interaction design, creativity, and design job.

Сообщение Quotes on User Experience Design from Usability Gurus появились сначала на Design4Users.