The only important thing about design is how it relates to people.
The role of designers and product makers is to really become much better editors. What kind of functionality is actually needed - and truly delightful - to consumers? Remove all the extraneous stuff.
I am always looking for ways to move technology away from being over-featured. Moving to Silicon Valley in the mid-1990s meant I grew up as a designer in an environment where technology is a tool and not a means to an end. I believe that design should be driven by ideas, not style.
When I design something, I think of it as a gift to somebody else.
The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.
You've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to sell it.
People first. Technology second.
At the core of the products we build, I want to think about productivity centered around people.
Don't define the game by the list of the features. Define it by the experience you want to have.
Instead of using the machine as a metaphor for architecture, as Le Corbusier did, I use the human body. I want the public to know that it's them I'm designing for.
I design things to help people to hopefully express their personality.
In a user lead model, users are bringing in their own technology... and you can build software then, around the user.
To me, 'design thinking' is another way of saying empathize with the customer. It's consideration for the person you're designing for.
The purpose of technology is not to confuse the brain but to serve the body.
I find that I often forget that people come from all over. In interfaces, products, experiences, and building for people, we always forget that people are not us.
The main tenet of design thinking is empathy for the people you're trying to design for. Leadership is exactly the same thing - building empathy for the people that you're entrusted to help.
If you intend to create something that people will observe and listen to, you've got to listen to them first.
I think taking design out of the studio and really having a relationship with the people that you're making it for really convinced me of how powerful a thing design is. It's not just an aesthetic decoration.
Start by putting yourself in your users' shoes. Why are they coming to your site? If you look at most Web sites, you'd presume that the answer is "User is extremely bored and wishes to stare at a blank screen for several minutes while a flashing icon loads, then stare at the flashing icon for a few more minutes."
Our focus in the client group had always been to build products and features that people wanted to use. That we wanted to use. That our moms wanted to use.
A modern health and social care system has to be completely focussed on the needs of its users.
For a while there, companies were pushing technology on people and people were buying it. Now the consumer is really in the driver's seat. Now it's more of an overall solution: How can technology make your life better? How can it save you time?
I don't want to be an elitist designer. It's no fun just catering for a small group of people. It's against my principles.
I believe one should design for the advantage of the largest mass of people, first and always. That takes care of ideologies and sociologies.
I think to be empathetic is the greatest gift you can have as a designer. Hopefully, people will look at me and say, 'He really loved women.'
