Dear Designer, stop designing for yourself!
Published in
2 min readJun 1, 2017
When starting out designing products, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that everyone is exactly like them so they end up designing products they would personally love to use. To be able to design great experiences it is critical to get out of our heads.
Here is a list of points to keep in mind so you can design products that are usable for all types of audiences and not just the ones that exactly like you:
- Not everyone has the same problems that need solving as you do.
- Not everyone thinks as you do.
- Not everyone has free time like you do.
- Not everyone works at a startup as you do.
- Not everyone looks like you do.
- Not everyone is as privileged as you.
- Not everyone has your experience.
- Not everyone sees the world as you do.
- Not everyone is as tech-savvy as you.
- Not everyone lives in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies.
- Not everyone reasons like you do.
- Not everyone has the same beliefs as you do.
- Not everyone shares your motivations.
- Not everyone dreams of spending all their free time using your app.
- Not everyone is on a 27‑inch iMac with Retina 5K display.
- Not everyone is right handed.
- Not everyone can distinguish color as you do.
- Not everyone uses a mouse as an input device.
- Not everyone has the same level of patience as you do.
This list is by no means all-encompassing, but it is a good starter list of pointers to keep in mind so you don’t end up designing for yourself.
Do you have any pointers you would like to add to this list?
