Design for users, not fellow designers
When I started out designing user interfaces, I was hungry for information and virtually tore through all available resources, Instagram feeds, Dribble and Behance posts. I followed popular designers and soon, I came up with my own designs and posted them on social media. My designs weren’t getting the reaction I expected and honestly, that hurt. 😔
Welp!, I was feeling like a total loser. This sent me into a continuous effort of trying to copy what other designers did, so as to get similar recognition. It started to pay off after a while and I was happy.
But I was failing to see the big picture, the “real thing”. Which was;
design always seeks to solve a problem (existing or potential).
And the stuff I was creating…they didn’t just seem to do so, rather they were geared towards gaining acceptance from other designers and this was really awful.
I was failing to empathize with the users, failing to see that users would want their problems solved even before they considered the visual elements.
Real users don’t even really know a lot about trends, they just need some stuff to make their life easier and we designers often totally forget about that, preferring to give priority to aesthetics.
I’m not in any way seeking to condemn visually pleasing design, but rather trying to point out that priority should be placed first on the functionality than on the aesthetics…this could greatly be achieved by trying to breakdown any design project into the simplest of elements and work on making it as easy as possible for the potential end user.
The “U” in UI stands for User!
Positive feedback from users far outweighs the “likes” gotten on Instagram, Dribbble or Behance.
This really brings the functionality of the design to the fore and also constantly reminding us that anything we set out to design, is created for humans.
At the end of it all, user satisfaction is the goal, and not ‘likes’
Cheers human…remember to breathe! 😊
