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Quotes Found for You

By Gerd Waloszek, User Experience, SAP AG – Last Update: 04/28/2008

On this page we collect quotes from people in the UI and graphic design field. This page will be continually expanded (newest additions are listed first).

 

Quote No. 38: Harold Thimbleby "Another [danger sign] is how computers encourage us to make our society more and more complex – in fact, our laws (tax being a good example) are so complicated that it would be hard to stay in business without a computer to help. If the government assumes every business has a computer, then it can impose regulations that only a computer can cope with." (From Press On, 2007)

Quote No. 37: Harold Thimbleby "As designers, we don't want to moan, but make the world a better place." (From Press On, 2007)

Quote No. 36: Jeff Johnson "When a software product is not responsive enough, programmers tend to blame poor algorithms and inefficient implementation. They try to improve the algorithms and tune the performance of the application's functions. Their ideal is that all functions should execute as close to instantaneously as possible. This causes delays in release dates while programmers try to speed up unacceptably 'slow' products. The software is often eventually released event though it is still slower than developers, managers, and customers had hoped." (From GUI Bloopers 2.0, 2007)

Quote No. 35: Jeff Johnson "Programmers often blame poor responsiveness on slow computer hardware. According to this view, poor responsiveness is a trivial problem because higher performance computers will soon be available, and upgrading to those will solve the problem. This view ignores history: in the past 25 years, computer power and speed have increased by a factor of several hundred or more, yet responsiveness is still as much of a problem as ever." (From GUI Bloopers 2.0, 2007)

Quote No. 34: Rich Gold "Creativity is making something new that also opens up a new category, a new genre, or a new type of thing. ... But there is another meaning of the word creative that also has a qualitative connotation: It's not just something that has never been before, but it is something good, or useful, or communicative, or impressive, or beautiful and that a few people would buy for large amounts of money or that lots of people would buy for a small amount." (From The Plenitude, 2007)

Quote No. 33: Rich Gold "The sense of eternalness in our culture comes from everything being ever new. This is at the core of our culture. We must make things to get money to buy other things, including food and shelter. And since we can't make what others are making – by law and by the laws of the marketplace – it is only through creativity and innovation that we survive." (From The Plenitude, 2007)

Quote No. 32: Rich Gold "For an artist user-testing is a joke. For a designer it is fundamental. If an artist looks inward as a way of seeing the world, the designer looks outward towards others. An artist paints a painting, stares at it, and says, “isn't it beautiful, it expresses my inner vision perfectly.” The designer paints a painting, stares at, then turns it around to the audience and asks “Do you like it? No? Then I'll change it.”" (From The Plenitude, 2007)

Quote No. 31: Sarah Horton "Partnering with users requires two things: First, we have to design for transformation. Our pages must have flexible elements, and the overall design must uphold to change. Second, we need to recognize and respect the boundaries of the user domain." (From Access by Design, 2005)

Quote No. 31: Sarah Horton "Partnering with users requires two things: First, we have to design for transformation. Our pages must have flexible elements, and the overall design must uphold to change. Second, we need to recognize and respect the boundaries of the user domain." (From Access by Design, 2005)

Quote No. 30: Sarah Horton "Until this time [that is, before the introduction of 'users' into the Web design process], I felt my role as a designer was to make decisions about the design of my pages on behalf of the user, based on what I knew on graphic, interface, and information design. Once I started with users, I could derive design decisions by observing user behavior and feedback." (From Access by Design, 2005)

Quote No. 29: Sarah Horton "Making decisions – that is the task of the designer. Good decisions have a basis: a purpose to uphold and best practices to achieve that purpose." (From Access by Design, 2005)

Quote No. 28: Mary Frances Theofanos & Janice Redish "Meeting the required accessibility standards does not ... necessarily mean that a Web site is usable for people with disabilities. And if a Web site is not usable, it is not really accessible, even if it has all the elements required by the law." (From Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites: Observing Users Who Work With Screen Readers, 2003/2006)

Quote No. 27: Ben Shneiderman "More time is wasted in front of computers than on highways." (From Universal Usability, 2000)

Quote No. 26: Don Norman "Designers go astray for several reasons. First, the reward structure of the design community tends to put aesthetics first. ... Second, designers are not typical users. ... Third, ... designers must please their clients, and the clients may not be the users." (From The Design of Everyday Things , 2002)

Quote No. 25: Don Norman "The paradox of technology – the same technology that simplifies life by providing more functions in each device also complicates life by making the device harder to learn, harder to use – should never be used as an excuse for poor design. It is true that as the number of options and capabilities of any device increase, so too must the number and complexity of the controls. But the principles of good design can make complexity manageable." (From The Design of Everyday Things , 2002, adapted )

Quote No. 24: Don Norman "Of course, people do make errors. Complex devices will always require some instruction, and someone using them without instruction should expect to make errors and to be confused. But designers should take special pains to make errors as cost-free as possible." (From The Design of Everyday Things , 2002)

Quote No. 23: Don Norman "If an error is possible, someone will make it. The designer must assume that all possible errors will occur and design so as to minimize the chance of the error in the first place, or its effect once it gets made. Errors should be easy to detect, they should have minimal consequences, and, if possible, their effects should be reversible." (From The Design of Everyday Things , 2002)

Quote No. 22: David Kelley "Interaction design started from two separate directions, with screen graphics for displays and separate input devices, but it got more interesting when the hardware and software came together in products. Then along came the information appliance, implying that technology would start to fit into our everyday lives, and when the Internet connected everything together, we found ourselves designing complete experiences." (From Designing Interactions, 2007)

Quote No. 21: Cordell Ratzlaff "As interaction designers, we need to remember that it is not about the interface, it's about what people want to do! To come up with great designs, you need to know who those people are and what they are really trying to accomplish." (From Designing Interactions, 2007)

Quote No. 20: John Maeda "The best designers in the world all squint when they look at something. They squint to see the forest from the trees – to find the right balance. Squint at the world. You will see more, by seeing less." (From The Laws of Simplicity, 2006)

Quote No. 19: John Maeda "Imagine a world in which software companies simplified their programs every year by shipping with 10% fewer features at 10% higher cost due to the expense of simplification For the consumer to get less and pay more seems to contradict sound economic principles. ... Yet in spite of the logic of demand, 'simplicity sells.' ... The undeniable commercial success of the Apple iPod – a device that does less but costs more than other digital music players – is a key supporting example of this trend. ... People not only buy, but more importantly love, designs that can make their lives simpler." (From The Laws of Simplicity, 2006)

Quote No. 18: Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini "Make HCI bugs 'first-class' bugs like engineering bugs." Or: "Ensure HCI problems are flagged as standard 'bugs'." (From course and course material, 2006)

Quote No. 17: Clarisse Sieckenius de Souza "Interestingly, all the user-centered mantras in HCI have repeated the need to know the users. This is undeniably a fundamental requirement for designing good products. But we have never seen a suggestion that users should know designers." (From The Semiotic Engineering of Human-Computer Interaction, 2005)

Quote No. 16: John Thackara "When continuous acceleration is the default tempo of innovation, it leads to 'feature bloat' in products and the phenomenon, which we are seeing now, of customers who resist the pressure to upgrade devices or software continually." (From In the Bubble, 2005)

Quote No. 15: Jef Raskin "Once the product's task is known, design the interface first; then implement to the interface design. ... As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the the product." (Cited by Malcolm McCullough in Digital Ground, 2004)

Quote No. 14: John Carroll "The worst misstep one can make in design is to solve the wrong problem." (Cited by Malcolm McCullough in Digital Ground, 2004)

Quote No. 13: Malcolm McCullough "The prevailing computer-human interaction (CHI) model of interface design has been partly responsible for the current state of the desktop computer. The breakthrough on which the field emerged was the admission of psychological principles. The resulting graphical user interface has been the focus of the field of computer-human interaction for nearly 20 years. This interface is a virtual control panel whose design has remained quite technology-centered." (From Digital Ground, 2004)

Quote No. 12: Malcolm McCullough "..., current interfaces illustrate how many computer scientists are biased toward efficiency with technological resources rather than human attention; or to put it bluntly, toward convenience for computers before convenience for people." (From Digital Ground, 2004)

Quote No. 11: Malcolm McCullough "Graphical user interfaces have long been built on principles of shifting focus – picking up a tool, opening and closing a window, etc. – but they still leave us staring at a cluttered screen. " (From Digital Ground, 2004)

Quote No. 10: Sarah Kuhn "Most people who encounter computer-based automation at work do not choose the software with which they work, and have comparatively little control over when and how they do what they do. For them, the use of computers can be an oppressive experience, rather than a liberating one. " (From Bringing Design to Software, edited by Terry Winograd, 1996)

Quote No. 9: Laura De Young "It is pointless – perhaps even damaging – to conduct usability tests merely because testing is fashionable or required by management. ... If designers do not have the time, energy, or authority to make changes, or if they are too deeply attached to their design to be willing to change it, there is no point in asking customers what they want." (From Bringing Design to Software, edited by Terry Winograd, 1996)

Quote No. 8: Peter Denning and Pamela Dargan "The standard engineering design process produces a fundamental blindness to the domains of actions in which the customers of software live and work." (From Bringing Design to Software, edited by Terry Winograd, 1996)

Quote No. 7: Paul Saffo "We use tools to accomplish tasks, and we abandon tools when the effort required to make the tool deliver exceeds our threshold of indignation. ... (... the threshold of indignation (is) the maximal behavioral compromise that we are willing to make to get a task done.)" (From Bringing Design to Software, edited by Terry Winograd, 1996)

Quote No. 6: Gillian Crampton Smith and Philip Tabor "If interaction design is considered only at the end, software is driven by engineering design, of which users are rightly unaware, rather than by representations with which they interact." (From Bringing Design to Software, edited by Terry Winograd, 1996)

Quote No. 5: David Liddle "Software design is the act of determining the user's experience with a piece of software. It has nothing to do with how the code works inside, or how big or small the code is. The designer's task is to specify completely and unambiguously the user's whole experience." (From Bringing Design to Software, edited by Terry Winograd, 1996)

Quote No. 4: Mitchell Kapor "Despite the enormous outward success of personal computers, the daily experience of using computers far too often is still fraught with difficulty, pain, and barriers for most people.... The lack of usability of software and the poor design of programs are the secret shame of the industry." (From Bringing Design to Software, edited by Terry Winograd, Software Design Manifesto, 1996)

Quote No. 3: Ben Shneiderman "The old computing was about what computers could do; the new computing is about what users can do. Successful technologies are those that are in harmony with users' needs. They must support relationships and activities that enrich the users' experiences." (From Leonardo's Laptop, 2002)

Quote No. 2: Don Norman "Although the computer has changed dramatically since the 1980s, the basic way we use it hasn't. The Internet and World Wide Web give much more power, much more information, along with more things to lose track of, more places to get lost in. More ways to confuse and confound. It's time to start over." (From The Invisible Computer, 1998)

Quote No. 1: Don Norman "Making everything visible is great when you only have twenty things. When you have twenty thousand, it only adds to the confusion." (From The Invisible Computer, 1998)

 

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