One of my favorite design books is Designing for Emotion by Aaron Walter from the A Book Apart series. I’ve read it roughly 4 times since I bought the book, and it is still relevant today. So perfectly named, the book has guided me more times than I can count when approaching a design challenge. The biggest lesson I’ve come away with from reading the book is letting the users’ needs drive the decision making process.
My goal for every project I take on is to put a check mark next to each one of levels in the user’s hierarchy of needs pyramid.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (altered for digital applications along with my own twist. I didn’t like “pleasurable” at the top tier). True success is had when all four levels have been reached. And even then, there is always room to improve.
My process
Process can be a funny thing, just like any well laid plan. At some point in the world of product, a wrench will probably get thrown in to mix things up. And that’s OK.
I believe one of the better traits of anyone in software is to be adaptable. Yes, in my experience when some amount of time has been given to each phase of learning, planning, prototyping and executing–I’ve had the best outcomes. But if for some reason we weren’t able to spend 2 weeks on user research, and you only had 3 days… I say find a way to make it count and roll with the punches. Couldn’t figure out the perfect contrast to make that button pop? Fix it later.
Most importantly, make sure you’re delivering user value. Did we just make something better, easier, faster? If yes, then consider it a success and move on to make it even better the next go around.
If you hadn’t noticed, I really like whiteboards and sketching. These are a few of the brain dumps I’ve captured over the years while working through complex, dynamic, data problems.