The missing element is simple: tension. The tension can be subtle, as it would be if the next line of the story was: …and behind the garden was a freshly dug grave.
This explanation really helped me see why some stories are boring and others are gripping. Without tension, it’s just a list of facts, not something that makes you want to keep reading. I want to remember to always add some kind of conflict or challenge when I tell stories, even in professional settings
Design justice rethinks design processes, centers people who are normally marginalized by design, and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face.
I appreciate how this approach challenges the traditional idea of the designer as the expert who knows best. Centering marginalized voices seems like a powerful way to make sure solutions are actually helpful and fair. It makes me wonder how often people who are most affected by design decisions are actually included in the process.
The point of this story is to provide a small but concrete example from my own daily lived experience of how larger systems—including norms, values, and assumptions—are encoded in and reproduced through the design of sociotechnical systems.d-undefined, .lh-undefined { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) !important; }1Jonathan Calzada, or in political theorist Langdon Winner’s famous words, how “artifacts have politics.d-undefined, .lh-undefined { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) !important; }4Yingying Han, katie wills evans, Jonathan Calzada, Muhammad Khurram.”.d-undefined, .lh-undefined { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) !important; }1Elham Abdo
This sentence really made me think about how even everyday technologies, like airport scanners, can reinforce certain social norms and biases. It’s eye-opening to realize that design is never neutral and always carries the values of those who create it. As someone interested in design, I feel a responsibility to question what assumptions are being built into the systems I help create.
Methods in this paradigm try to simulate people using a design and then use design principles and expert judgement to predict likely problems.
I think it’s interesting that analytical methods don’t require real users, just simulations and expert knowledge. This seems really efficient, especially when you can’t get users to test your design right away. But I also wonder if this approach sometimes misses issues that only real users would notice.
A major limitation of A/B tests is that because it’s difficult to come up with holistic measures of success, the results tend to be pretty narrow.
This point made me realize that not everything important can be measured easily, especially with A/B tests. I used to think A/B testing was the ultimate way to know what works, but now I see its limits. It’s a reminder to think carefully about what really matters in a design, not just what’s easy to track.
Good tasks define the goal you want a user to achieve with your design without giving away any of the knowledge they need to achieve the goal
This advice makes a lot of sense because if you give too many hints, you’re not really testing the design. I hadn’t realized how tricky it can be to write instructions that are clear but not leading. I want to practice creating tasks that truly reflect what users will experience on their own.
Defaults represent a designers’ beliefs of a user’s most likely expectations, intents, and tasks. It’s important to remember that there is no “average user,
I never thought about how much power there is in choosing default settings. What seems like a small choice can actually affect who feels welcome or left out when using a product. This makes me want to be more intentional and thoughtful about the assumptions I make as a designer.
their behavior is governed by the concepts of input, output, and algorithms that compute output based on input
I appreciate how this breaks down interfaces into basic building blocks: input, output, and algorithms. It helps me see that, at the core, every digital interface is just about how people give information to a computer and how the computer responds. This simple framework makes the complexity of UI design feel a little more manageable.
, it’s important to reiterate: the purpose of a prototype isn’t the making of it, but the knowledge gained from making and testing it
This is a helpful reminder that the real value in prototyping comes from what you learn, not from the prototype itself. It’s easy to get attached to what you’ve made, but the goal is to improve your ideas. I want to focus more on learning and less on making things perfect right away.
Don’t spend 6 months engineering something that isn’t useful.
This really makes me think about how easy it is to underestimate the time and cost of building a product. I can see how tempting it is to just jump in and start building. It’s a good reminder to slow down and make sure the idea is actually useful before investing a lot of effort.
Accurate random sampling will be wasted if the information gathered is built on a shaky foundation of ambiguous or biased questions.
This sentence really drives home that even the best sampling methods can't make up for poorly written questions. It makes me realize that question wording is just as important as who you ask. I see now that getting the questions right is essential for meaningful results.
A questionnaire, like a conversation, should be grouped by topic and unfold in a logical order.
I like the idea of treating a questionnaire like a conversation because it makes the process feel more natural. Starting with easy questions seems like a good way to make people comfortable and more likely to finish the survey. This advice will help me organize my surveys better so they flow smoothly for respondents.
A competitive analysis provides strategic insights into the features, functions, flows, and feelings evoked by the design solutions of your competitors.
I find it interesting that the article includes “feelings” as something to analyze, not just features and functions. This reminds me that user experience is about more than just what a product does; it’s also about how it makes people feel. I think it’s important to remember that emotions can be a big part of why someone chooses one product over another.
Don’t simply copy the designs you find in your research.
This advice stands out to me because it’s tempting to just imitate what seems to work for others. I appreciate the reminder that every product and audience is different, so copying might not actually lead to the best results. It encourages me to think more critically and creatively about how to use what I learn from competitors.
Know when to perform a “comparative analysis.”
This point opened my mind to looking beyond just direct competitors for inspiration. Sometimes the best ideas might come from completely different industries or types of products. It makes me realize that creativity in UX can come from unexpected places, not just from studying similar apps or websites.
When it comes to documenting and sharing your competitive analysis research, there is no “right” way to do it.
I find it reassuring that there isn’t a single correct way to document or present competitive analysis. This flexibility takes some pressure off, especially as I’m still learning which tools and methods work best for me. It also shows that the main goal is clear communication and informed decision-making, not following a strict format.
Your best idea will probably be your 100th idea and not your first, because it will incorporate all of the wonderful things about the first 99 ideas. So start generating those bad ideas, figuring out what’s wrong with them, and then making better ones.
This really changes how I think about brainstorming. I usually get frustrated if my first ideas aren’t perfect, but now I see that making lots of “bad” ideas is actually part of the process. It makes me feel better about taking risks and not being afraid to fail at first.
Another way to generate creative ideas is to steal them from other contexts. Why would you spend a bunch of time generating good ideas when there are so many good ideas already out there?
This idea surprised me because I always thought creativity meant coming up with something totally new. It’s interesting to think that borrowing and remixing ideas from other places is actually a smart way to be creative. Now I feel less pressure to invent everything from scratch and more motivated to look for inspiration everywhere.
I believe creative thinking is an inherently divergent, generative activity that all people can do. However, most societies do not value creative thinking and so our skills in generating ideas rapidly atrophies, as we do not practice it, and instead actively learn to suppress it
I never realized how much society might actually discourage creativity. It makes me think about times when I’ve held back ideas because I was worried about being judged. This makes me want to practice sharing my ideas more, even if they seem unusual at first
appropriation66 Dourish, P. (2003). The appropriation of interactive technologies: Some lessons from placeless documents. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). . This involves involves taking some object in the world and using it for some purpose it was not intended.
I think it’s interesting that design can be as simple as reusing something in a new way. It makes me realize that creativity in design doesn’t always mean inventing something totally new. Sometimes, it’s about seeing new possibilities in what already exists, which feels more approachable for someone just starting out.
This is the premise of design justice44 Costanza-Chock, S. (2020). Design justice: Community-led practices to build the worlds we need. MIT Press. , which observes that design is fundamentally about power, in that designs may not only serve some people less well, but systematically exclude them in surprising, often unintentional ways.
This point is eye-opening because I hadn’t thought about design as something that could exclude people. It makes me realize that designers have a lot of responsibility to think about who might be left out. I want to learn more about how to avoid these mistakes and make my designs more fair and accessible for everyone.
design is fundamentally about power, in that designs may not only serve some people less well, but systematically exclude them in surprising, often unintentional ways.
This statement challenged me to think about the deeper impact of design decisions. It’s surprising to realize how design can unintentionally exclude certain groups or reinforce inequalities.
Universal design3,11,133 Burgstahler, S. (2009). Universal design: Process, principles, and applications. DO-IT.. 11 Nesmith, M. (2016). Why we need universal design. TEDx Talks. 13 Story, M. F. (1998). Maximizing usability: the principles of universal design. Assistive Technology. attempts to address this, arguing that designers should assume that there will be a vast diversity in the types of people that want to use what you design
I really admire the idea behind universal design because it emphasizes inclusivity and fairness. At the same time, designing for such a wide range of people sounds challenging, especially for someone just starting out in UX/UI. It makes me wonder if there are strategies or tools that can help beginners approach this kind of complexity.
Whereas human-centered design focuses on an individual, activity-centered design focuses on a system and the activities in it, value-sensitive design focuses on human value tensions amongst diverse stakeholders.
I appreciate the critique here because it challenges me to think beyond individual needs and consider broader systems. This makes me question whether human-centered design might sometimes oversimplify complex problems by ignoring systemic factors.
design is a way of thinking, a mindset, a form of optimistic approach to imagining better worlds.
As someone new to UX/UI design, I find this idea inspiring but also intimidating. While optimism and imagining better worlds sound ideal, the practical challenges of achieving this vision seem overwhelming, especially for beginners. It makes me wonder if cultivating this mindset is something that comes naturally with experience or if it requires deliberate effort and training.
It’s also key to surfacing who precisely is benefiting from design, which is key to ensuring that design efforts are equitable, helping to dismantle structures of oppression through design, rather than further reinforce, or worse, amplify them
This sentence made me think about how design isn’t just about solving problems, it’s also about making sure solutions are fair and inclusive. It’s powerful to consider that design can either help fix inequalities or make them worse depending on how it’s done. As someone new to design, this feels like an important responsibility to keep in mind as I learn more.
One simple form of knowledge is to derive goals and values from your data
I like how this focuses on figuring out what people care about and what they’re trying to achieve. It’s interesting to think about how different designs can serve totally different goals depending on who you’re designing for. This makes me wonder how designers decide which goals to prioritize when there are so many competing needs.
Interviews are flawed and limited in many ways. They are out of context; they require people to remember things (which people tend not to do well).
This was surprising to read because I thought interviews were one of the best ways to learn about users. It’s interesting how even something as direct as asking questions can still lead to misunderstandings or biases. This makes me realize how important it is to combine different research methods to get a fuller picture of a problem.
The problem is, once you really understand a problem, you realize that most problems are not solvable at all. They’re tangled webs of causality, which one might call “wicked” problems
This idea is a bit discouraging at first because it makes solving problems sound impossible. But I like how it shifts the focus to making small improvements rather than trying to fix everything at once. It makes me think that design is more about progress than perfection, which feels more realistic and achievable.
professional design is just design for pay, in a formal organization, often (but not necessarily) with a profit motive
This definition of professional design feels very straightforward but also makes me think about the difference between designing for money versus designing for personal or community needs. It’s interesting that professional design might not always be better than informal or community-based design.
if design was problem solving, then we all design to some degree
This is such an interesting perspective because it makes design feel more relatable and less exclusive. It’s cool to think that even simple things like rearranging my room or making a sign can be considered design.
Design was where ideas came from. Design was methods for generating ideas. It was methods for evaluating ideas. It was ways of communicating ideas.
I like how this breaks down what design really is—it’s not just about the end result but about the whole process of coming up with and improving ideas. It makes me think about how important creativity and communication are in design.
thought design was about colors, fonts, layout, and other low-level visual details
I’ve always thought of design as mostly about visuals too. It’s surprising to learn that design is so much deeper than just making things look good. It makes me wonder how many other misconceptions I might have about this field and what else I’ll discover as I learn more.