Designing For Humans, Not Users
A few months ago, I read an amazing article by Adam Lefton on why he refuses to call people as ‘Users’ and he did have a valid point. Defining a person (or human) as a user takes away their individuality and reduces them to a Robot with brains. We definitely don’t design products for them, instead, we are doing it for HUMANS! for Kids, for Adults, for everyone!
Let’s stop this argument here itself and start with what I’m talking about when I say Design for Humans.
What is Design?
That’s a tough one! Every single person has a unique definition of design but what is it actually? Wikipedia says “A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process, or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product or process.”
Well, that’s a bit complex, but I think Design is nothing but a fancy term for
Simple and Effective Information Transfer
Isn’t it? Tell me what’s your definition of design in the comments. Let’s debate this!!
Purpose of Design
Design has a single purpose and that is making people feel good when it’s being used. Sounds easy? But it ain’t.
There are many designs out there that are visually appealing but turn out to be a complete disaster when it comes to usability and user experience. Similarly, you might have encountered a lot of designs that are super easy to use but score very less in terms of visuals.
As a Product Designer or UI/UX Designer, whatever you wanna call it. We need to find the perfect balance between visuals and user experience. Else it’s a failure, as simple as that.
Design for Humans
So what do I mean when I say Design for Humans? I literally mean Design for Humans and nothing else. Human beings are unique in the way they feel emotions and have feelings. You might wanna argue saying Dogs have feelings too but we aren’t creating apps for them, are we? 😅
So Let’s just say we are Designing for Humans and if you can make a person feel happy or comfortable by a single line of text or just a cute panda. It’s enough! Don’t believe me? Have a look at this.
Imagine the same information being conveyed to you as you’d read in a User Manual, that’s boring. You don’t wanna bore people while they use your product.
It’s hard to make people smile, but if you can do that customer satisfaction reaches a whole new level.
What’s better than a witty remark, your favorite movie reference, or just a cute panda vying for your attention?
Not everyone would smile at that, but hey! it’s certainly better than your plain boring text.
This is just a simple example of how little things can build good user experience for people. It’s not as hard as it may seem but certainly not easy.
Who’s your target audience?
We can’t ignore the target audience, after all, they are the people who are gonna use the product in real life. As you can see the screenshot above, it adds references to movie characters and cute pandas, It’s definitely not aimed at elderly people who might not like it, possibly not even understand it.
The target audience here was people between the age of 13–25, who might be able to relate to all of it quite easily.
KISS
Keep it Simple, Stupid (and Short). No one likes to read long trails of text, try to be precise and to the point instead. But make it interesting, gather user’s attention. Don’t make him feel disappointed or tired.
Always Test
No matter how much you try to be in the customer’s shoe, as a designer it’s really hard to do that and visualize the perspective of the customer. This is why we need to test our designs always, what if your witty remark is understood by only 5% of people?
That’s not a good sign and you definitely don’t wanna do that. The best way to avoid it is to know your target audience first and TEST!
Before you go
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Thanks for reading! If you want to collaborate, talk about product design, give some suggestions or just want to say hello, hit me up at aman1.7.97@gmail.com or connect via LinkedIn.
