Good design focuses on the needs of the user
Summary
- Good design focuses on the needs of the user, not their wants, and not on the wants of the designer
Details
- An architect should not create a design that is centered on his design, but should be centered on the needs of the particular user
- users dont always know what they want, or can be mistaken. e.g. a doctor might be misled if he treats teh patients syndromes and not the actual underlying cause
References
Quotes
The biggest difference is that you focus more on the user. Design begins by asking, who is this for and what do they need from it? A good architect, for example, does not begin by creating a design that he then imposes on the users, but by studying the intended users and figuring out what they need.
Notice I said "what they need," not "what they want." I don't mean to give the impression that working as a designer means working as a sort of short- order cook, making whatever the client tells you to. This varies from field to field in the arts, but I don't think there is any field in which the best work is done by the people who just make exactly what the customers tell them to.
The customer is always right in the sense that the measure of good design is how well it works for the user. If you make a novel that bores everyone, or a chair that's horribly uncomfortable to sit in, then you've done a bad job, period. It's no defense to say that the novel or chair is designed according to the most advanced theoretical principles.
And yet, making what works for the user doesn't mean simply making what the user tells you to. Users don't know what all the choices are, and are often mistaken about what they really want. It's like being a doctor. You can't just treat a patient's symptoms. When a patient tells you his symptoms, you have to figure out what's actually wrong with him, and treat that.