My Most Important Tool
I’m speaking here primarily from my experiences as a UI designer, so take this as you will. I’ve been doing some reading recently in About Face 3, a great book by the way, highly recommended. It brought together some thoughts I’d been having and, so, inspired this post. So what do I think the all important tool is? I think the most important tool in my toolbox is empathy. Not in a touchy-feely sense, just in terms of getting inside someone’s head to see it from their point of view. Great research is wonderful, if you can get it. A detailed spec can be great for getting moving in the right direction, but without an understanding of the people using the program you won’t succeed. When it comes right down to it, that’s what every step of the process is designed to do, is give us an understanding of what the person in front of the screen wants or needs.
Sometimes I can sit down with the people that will be using my application, and that’s wonderful. I listen for what they really want to do, I listen to what they hate about the way they do things now. Sometimes, though, that just doesn’t happen. It might be a client that has a concept, but doesn’t have the resources to do user research. Or a bureaucracy with too many layers. Or any of a number of obstacles that can come up between me and that user I really want to speak to.
So what’s a designer to do then? At that point it’s up to me to become that end user, as best I can. Put down my pointy “design guy” hat and try to look at the problem with fresh eyes. It’s not easy, and I won’t claim that I always get it right, but it is crucial.
That’s the step that keeps me from adding the reflection, transparency, and drop-shadow, just because I think they’re cool. Sure those things have their place, and I love for the end result to look good, but if it doesn’t do the job then why bother? A powerful app with a poor interface, even with some great bells and whistles, isn’t going to get the job done.
I’ve probably rambled on long enough, and I might sound a little self-righteous, but that’s my stand. Empathy, don’t leave home without it, or something like that.