Design Feast Series: Quotes

“Empathy—the driving force behind good listening—is the number one requirement for anyone who wants to create a good experience. Not a long list of methods, not a scholarly knowledge of one’s niche field—but empathy. Anyone can learn a method; but people who can listen, can pay attention, can see the experience from someone else’s perspective, are rare and valuable.

Writing a book, for example, requires the author to constantly read and re-read the text from the perspective of the readers: will this make sense to them? Not to me, the author, but to someone who’s coming at this fresh?

Creating a website, or application, or any sort of product, requires the developer to consider: what will the user think of this? Not me, the developer, but someone who’s not me.

It’s a difficult skill, and some people are better than others, but it can be developed. Listen. Pay attention. Think about the experience from someone else’s perspective. That’s the basis of creating good experience.”

Mark Hurst, Founder of Creative Good and Good Experience; Host of Gel conference