16 Guiding principles I live by in UX

A collection of principles I live by when having conversations about design thinking

When you get immersed in the world of UX, you as a designer, researcher or writer will start to see your own ways the world of UX operates. The principles below are a collection that I have either learnt, experienced or believe in based on my time as a Senior UX Researcher.

The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour

Humans are creatures of habit. We get comfort from being able to reference or relate to something including our own actions. The more we do something, the more confident we grow doing it and so we have a tendency to repeat what we have done. It removes risk which is something we are hard wired to do in order to support our survival instincts. This is why when conducting research, rather than posing hypothetical questions about what someone may do in the future, I always believe it is best to ask about what they have done previously. This is factual (albeit with potential memory biases) and is something they are likely to repeat from which we can learn a lot about their future behaviours.

Do not treat everything as equals

It can be very easy to look at your existing product or the experience you are building out…