home / profile

Design Philosophy
Having been involved in the research and development of many web products, below is a summarized a list of guiding principles used to help focus efforts and ensure coverage.

Ed’s Top 10 User Experience Design Principles

1. “User-familiar,” not “user-friendly” – discourage the idea that there is a universal rule known as “user-friendly,” encourage instead the idea of “user familiarity” which requires knowledge about the context users place understanding.
2. Make it easy to explain – have users express in their words the solution to determine both the impact and focus of what’s been delivered / built for them
3. Everything has a temporal element – static images of concepts are not enough to evaluate solutions--consider how those elements change and how actions respond. Timing is crucial and should be a design element.
4. Design with tasks in mind - limit what you can do on any one element to articulate most important aspects, ensure that everything has a call-to-action
5. Impose visual hierarchy – use visual and content contrast to provide scan-ability; solutions should be reviewed in thumbnail versions as well as monochromatic versions to ensure hierarchy is clear.
6. Watch ‘em use it – ask target users to accomplish specific task with think out loud exercises in their context (home, office, etc.), this of course implies that one needs to build some form of prototype
7. First impressions count but so does the second, third… – make people want to return and design for how that experience should be different. This is where serendipity should be embraced.
8. Deliver an integrated experience – immerse yourself in all the details like email experiences, how search engines see it, etc… but be careful of “edge cases” where doing a few things really well is more important than a lot not well done.
9. It’s never done – iterate, ask for feedback, allow for future generation
10. Users, users, users,… – get outside of your beliefs and be curious about how users receive, interpret and respond to solutions, but make sure you can identify very specific users. Innovation will come from extreme users but refinement will come from familiar users. In other words: design for everyone is design for no one.
    

As the user experience design focus becomes part of the organization, the goals of the products should be:

• Simple – scenarios that efficiently address real world expectations
• Measureable - structures to make experiences measurable
• Findable - optimized for search and serendipity
• Contextual - design to make content actionable, suitable for media and culturally aware
• Accessible - accommodate for relevant environments and disabilities

2 Diagrams that have been helpful in visualizing a user-center perspective

	Balancing user needs with that of the business and technology
	Integrating user-centered design into the lifecycle of products