September 30, 2009
“1) People don’t accurately self-report what they do. This is useful when studying customers during research, and managing clients during the whole darn life of a project.
2) Design isn’t an analytical process. Creativity requires taking leaps and risks, success requires managing those risks perfectly.
3) Have a mantra. Have a few words you can say to yourself over and over that captures what you want to accomplish in a design. Then make it a point to stop every few days and ask yourself, ‘does the design live up to the mantra?’
4) Always look at least one layer out from the design problem. When you’re drawing your designs, always put them in context. What room is the person in? What else is there? It might just force you to be a better sketcher, but it will often give you insight into issues and opportunities you’d otherwise miss.
5) Fidelity matters: Don’t try to be too polished or too rough, be where you are in the process. If you don’t have a good sense of what’s right, find a mentor who can review your work from that perspective. Otherwise, no matter how great your idea is, it’ll get lost in the silly stuff.”
Gretchen Anderson, Director of User Interface Design at LUNAR
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Nate Burgos, Content Creator & Publisher
