“It’s somehow paradoxical that one of the most important characteristics of a good design, its unobtrusiveness, renders it harder to notice or appreciate.”
– Martin
Good design is somehow invisible, which contributes to the common perception of design as a discipline that is somehow unimportant or easy to do. It’s somehow paradoxical that one of the most important characteristics of a good design, its unobtrusiveness, renders it harder to notice or appreciate.
Bad design, on the contrary, because it is more noticeable and easier to spot, gets associated with design as a profession, contributing to the more critical view of design as a useful discipline.
“If you base all your design decisions on data only, your designs will be only as good as your data is.”
When working on design projects, whether it’s for my clients or myself, I like to remind myself that:
Data can be inaccurate and misleading. It is better to assume that not all data you get is always 100% accurate.
Be aware of biased interpretations of data. Data can often be intentionally skewed by those presenting it to us.
I try to make decisions based on my intuition, experience, knowledge, and other sources of information. I rarely rely on data alone.
So my advice would be: use data to verify your hypotheses or to justify your points when relevant, but be careful to rely on data as your only source of information, as it can backfire on you. It’s healthy to be slightly sceptical of given data, especially when unsure where it came from. And always watch for biased interpretations and question your sources.
📖 If you want to dig deeper on this topic, here are some articles worth reading:
“Pride comes before the fall. Remember, the lack of confidence is your enemy, but so is overconfidence. “
The best way to design amazing product is to stay curious and keep your ego at bay. Always ask questions when unsure, be inquisitive, and don’t assume that you know everything that needs to be known because most likely you don’t.
“Any understanding of the world is incomplete. Be open to new interpretations and perspectives as it can help you to move beyond existing solutions.“
Philosophers are well aware that any understanding of the world is incomplete. As a product designer, I like to remind myself of this simple truth about our world, especially when reviewing older research findings or design solutions.
We need to embrace change and adapt as new information and perspectives emerge. We should question the key decisions from the past and challenge the existing solutions when they stop making sense. It could be that circumstances have changed, and what was a sensible solution before is no longer the one.
“I believe that it is our duty to help create products that promote the welfare of all people, not only users of our products but also non-users of our products who might be impacted by our creations, including future generations, animals, plans, and ecosystems.“
You can call me naive or idealist, but I’m convinced that we should design holistically, consider the interconnectedness of complex systems, and always mitigate the negative impact of our creations.
It is our duty, as designers, to promote the welfare of all people through designs that are inclusive and holistically thought-through.
My thinking is inspired by the philosophy of utilitarianism, which I believe is the most rational approach for ensuring the long-term survival of our species.
“Feedback, either explicit or implicit, delivered through affective feedback loops, is our most powerful design tool.“ 🤔
Collecting feedback is an essential part of what we do as designers 🧑🏻💻 It is our way of discovering what works for our customers and what doesn’t 👍🏼👎🏼
We should always listen to our customers, but they don’t need to always know that we are listening to them when collecting feedback.
There are different ways how we can collect feedback:
we can observe our customers going about their business (implicit feedback),
or we can ask them specific questions allowing them to express themselves verbally (explicit feedback).
Remember: It is usually the combination of these two methods that yields the best results 👍🏼
Is it possible that we became so obsessed with our design processes that somehow, we lost sight of our primary mission, which is the creation of useful products for our customers. Any thoughts?
I find personas to be one of the most overrated design artefacts. They are often too generic, contextually irrelevant or unrelated to the problem at hand.
