What do people want? It's not always what we've been asked to sell them. Design is most powerful when it speaks to our simplest motivations. We want our lives to be comfortable, we want to be entertained, to be seen as attractive and to protect the people and things we love. Whatever we're making, keep it tied to a basic need and tell a clear story about its value.
Intention comes before action. Understanding intention allows us to predict and shape behavior. A well-crafted user experience applies the psychology , but if the offering meets a genuine need - understanding intention helps you meet that need more quickly - then everyone is happy.
Dissatisfaction is the awareness of friction - it's a muscle that can be exercised at a long traffic light or waiting for a slow barista. Moments of annoyance, inefficiency or discomfort should be noticed and examined. If you can identify the cause of the friction you can see the dotted lines of the invisible solution. Would a new light pattern smooth the traffic flow? The barista may need a better wage to motivate them. When pricked by annoyance, imagine a better system - it's even more satisfying than complaining.
There are many ways to tell a story or solve a problem. It's good to aim for perfection, but it's more important to get something finished. Design, build, launch - get it live, then test it, evaluate it. Focus on function, then refine over time.
It feels good to own a beautiful object, and a polished experience can bring the same delight. Often the smallest details - a hint of animation or subtle audio chime will connect people to what you've made.
Curation has become a primary means of experiencing the web — reblog, retweet, share to Facebook. But the sharing machine revolves around original content. Craft and time sit at the center of the best media created today - entertaining writing, emotive photography. There's a lot of crap to sift through of course, but good content travels farther than ever before. So create, hone your skills and become valuable — and businesses? Spend money creating content that adds value to your industry - it builds trust and organically spreads more powerfully than paid media. As more people express themselves through curation, the people who create the content have a wider and more vocal audience to tell their story.
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