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We Need Intentional UX Design More Than Ever
Sometimes designers embed meaning to designs after they designed something. In reality, purpose should be always embedded in the final solution because design is purpose. We should be intentional with our design decisions because we are solving real-life problems for real people. There is intention in knowing how we should approach a problem. There is reasoning behind those decisions. How else could design be functional and relevant to people? When we design with intention, we need to think about those things.
Purpose over Building
In order to get to a great idea, you need to create a framework on how to get there instead of building first and thinking about meaning later (I wrote a post on the importance of developing a rationale here). A potential problem with building right away is not understanding the significance behind what and why of said idea. It is important to validate your idea right away through sketching and prototyping, but when you do it without tact, it can result in half-hearted reasoning, unclear design decisions, and a focus on the wrong problem.
But, too much thinking and research can waste time and hinder ideas.
The best products that resulted from “innovation” came from the building fast, failing early mentality where companies had a vision, made assumptions, built something, tested it with real people and iterated based on feedback. They didn’t think too much about getting to where they are today, they did something about it and went back to define the details. The details were not added after the MVP was created which goes back to my main point:
In order to support design decisions behind any solution, you must understand your audience and the problem
Concept sketches/explorations are important and I know there are places which emphasize this, but it should not be the same step (i.e. beginning) for every project. Every problem is different and there are numerous approaches to getting a solution. From my perspective, when I started concept…
