Daily UX Inspiration (Part 6)

My all-time favorite quotes on design

Since the deprecation of Medium’s Series, I’m transitioning past content to posts paired with images that stimulate the Overview Effect. All photos by USGS.

For more quotes, see Part 1,Part 2,Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

I think perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.

— Yohji Yamamoto

For me, restrictions are not always negative. Restrictions can push creativity. I like restrictions.

— Dries van Noten

It is relatively easy to design for the perfect cases, when everything goes right, or when all the information required is available in proper format.

— Donald Norman

You can’t use up creativity, the more you use the more you have.

—Maya Angelou

It’s important to consider who you’re making your work for. Are you making it for other designers, or are you making it for people in the world?

— Tim Goodman

There is only one of you in all time. This expression is unique and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.

— Martha Graham

Your perspective is what makes things interesting. You can make work memorable by finding your perspective on a topic and bringing that to the project.

— Tim Goodman

Design is a human ritual of understanding.

— Maggie Macnab

Graphical excellence is that which gives to the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space.

— Edward Tufte

Intuitive design is how we give the user new superpowers.

—Jared Spool

If I didn’t have a diverse team, I would not have been able to design for the world.

— Jessica O. Matthews

The world is now awash in data and we can see consumers in a lot clearer ways.

— Max Levchin

Every human has four endowments — self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.

— Stephen Covey

When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.

— Stephen Covey

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.

— Peter Drucker

Our technology, our machines, is part of our humanity. We created them to extend ourselves, and that is what is unique about human beings.

— Ray Kurzweil

All sorts of things can happen when you’re open to new ideas and playing around with things.

— Stephanie Kwolek

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

— William Butler Yeats

Designers are afraid of incremental design but to launch faster you need an incremental vision.

—Katie Dill

A good user experience isn’t necessarily that far removed from a poor user experience. It can be small, subtle differences that can have a huge impact.

— Nathanael Boehm

Great designers don’t see problems and solutions alone. They see stepping stones for a coherent, intentional journey.

— Katie Dill

Design is human…[it’s ] about the connection it creates between a product and our lives.

— Jenny Arden

Each and every problem we face today is the direct and inevitable result of yesterday’s brilliant solutions.

— Henry Bergman

Design is applied ethics.

— Cennydd Bowles

Not everything can be simple. Not everything can be easy to use. Many apps and services are necessarily complex. But one thing they can all be is clear.

— Robert Hoekman Jr.

The ultimate freedom is a free mind, and we need technology that’s on our team to help us live, feel, think and act freely.

— Tristan Harris

I believe that virtually all the problems in the world come from inequality of one kind or another.

— Amartya Sen

I think that so many of our abilities to do things depend on interaction with each other.

— Amartya Sen

…the closer we pay attention to the options we’re given, the more we’ll notice when they don’t actually align with our true needs.

— Tristan Harris

Design is the beauty of turning constraints into advantages.

— Aza Raskin

Our own values and desires influence our choices, from the data we choose to collect to the questions we ask. Models are opinions embedded in mathematics.

— Cathy O’Neil

Justice cannot just be something that one part of society inflicts on the other.

— Cathy O’Neil

You can never let your data dictate design. If you do, you end up following what people currently do and never innovating.

— Aza Raskin

People try to treat technology as an object and it can’t be. It can only be a channel.

— Jaron Lanier

Many entrepreneurs who build great products simply don’t have a good distribution strategy.

— Gabriel Weinberg

While it’s to be expected that the human perspective will be changed by encounters with profound new technologies, the exercise of treating machine intelligence as real requires people to reduce their mooring to reality.

— Jaron Lanier

If you have an un-diverse team that creates a technology, it shouldn’t be surprising that people who fall outside of whatever that narrow demographic was will find the technology less attuned to them.

— Jaron Lanier

Technologists all start with a good intention, but don’t think through all of the scenarios.

— Padmasree Warrior

Markets are useful instruments for organizing productive activity. But unless we want to let the market rewrite the norms that govern social institutions, we need a public debate about the moral limits of markets.

— Michael Sandel

I believe one should design for the advantage of the largest mass of people, first and always. That takes care of ideologies and sociologies.

— Raymond Loewy

This list of favorites is from a collection of365+ quotes, hence the series name.

Did you enjoy this post? Buy me a coffee to give my brain a hug. 🍵

Feel free to check out my design work or my handbook on UX design, upgrading your portfolio and understanding design thinking.

Joanna Ngai

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Daily UX Inspiration (Part 6)

Daily UX Inspiration (Part 6)

My all-time favorite quotes on design

I think perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.

For me, restrictions are not always negative. Restrictions can push creativity. I like restrictions.

It is relatively easy to design for the perfect cases, when everything goes right, or when all the information required is available in proper format.

You can’t use up creativity, the more you use the more you have.

It’s important to consider who you’re making your work for. Are you making it for other designers, or are you making it for people in the world?

There is only one of you in all time. This expression is unique and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.

Your perspective is what makes things interesting. You can make work memorable by finding your perspective on a topic and bringing that to the project.

Design is a human ritual of understanding.

Graphical excellence is that which gives to the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space.

Intuitive design is how we give the user new superpowers.

If I didn’t have a diverse team, I would not have been able to design for the world.

The world is now awash in data and we can see consumers in a lot clearer ways.

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.

Our technology, our machines, is part of our humanity. We created them to extend ourselves, and that is what is unique about human beings.

All sorts of things can happen when you’re open to new ideas and playing around with things.

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

Designers are afraid of incremental design but to launch faster you need an incremental vision.

A good user experience isn’t necessarily that far removed from a poor user experience. It can be small, subtle differences that can have a huge impact.

Great designers don’t see problems and solutions alone. They see stepping stones for a coherent, intentional journey.

Design is human…[it’s ] about the connection it creates between a product and our lives.

Each and every problem we face today is the direct and inevitable result of yesterday’s brilliant solutions.

Design is applied ethics.

Not everything can be simple. Not everything can be easy to use. Many apps and services are necessarily complex. But one thing they can all be is clear.

The ultimate freedom is a free mind, and we need technology that’s on our team to help us live, feel, think and act freely.

I believe that virtually all the problems in the world come from inequality of one kind or another.

I think that so many of our abilities to do things depend on interaction with each other.

…the closer we pay attention to the options we’re given, the more we’ll notice when they don’t actually align with our true needs.

Design is the beauty of turning constraints into advantages.

Our own values and desires influence our choices, from the data we choose to collect to the questions we ask. Models are opinions embedded in mathematics.

Justice cannot just be something that one part of society inflicts on the other.

You can never let your data dictate design. If you do, you end up following what people currently do and never innovating.

People try to treat technology as an object and it can’t be. It can only be a channel.

Many entrepreneurs who build great products simply don’t have a good distribution strategy.

Technologists all start with a good intention, but don’t think through all of the scenarios.

I believe one should design for the advantage of the largest mass of people, first and always. That takes care of ideologies and sociologies.

UX Research Resources

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