Designing for Users

User-centered design, or designing from the user’s perspective, these are phrases designers often use. Everyone understands them differently (and some never really understand them). My interpretation is:

• Understand and feel the user’s needs; feel the user’s “hunger,” the user’s “pain.” A well-fed person doesn’t understand the hunger of a starving one. In many product scenarios, designers may have moved beyond “basic needs.” How can such “well-fed” designers create for the “hungry”? For example, a designer who’s always used an iPhone working on a low-end smartphone. Or, a designer who’s married working on a dating app.
• Be sincere and loving towards users. Being sincere means helping users solve problems with integrity, positivity, and love, not exploiting human weaknesses or dark sides. Catering to the “sinful” demands of human nature is a “shortcut,” with immediate, noticeable benefits, but in the long run, it’s a path to ruin. Myspace and Facebook are clear examples.
• In specific design tasks, designers should return to the basics and forget “showing off skills” or “being cool.” The starting point of design should be “how to create user value and present it to the user in a suitable way.” Design shouldn’t be a tool for designers to “stand out.”