100 things every designer needs to know about people

What Hacker News says

1. MaxPengwingJan 2023
   I think everyone who wants to design anything, software, hardware, woodworking, ceramics... medium doesn't matter... should read the Design of Everyday Things

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things

   Then I would recommend 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, 2nd Edition by Susan M. Weinschenk

   Why do I recommend this? Because so many engineers and developers don't realise that the rest of the world (i.e. your Users) don't think like you do.

   Before you even sit down to code take a pen and paper, and ask your self what is the purpose of this program, what problem am I trying to solve for my user? What would they like to see first, then what would the next view look like and why?

   Then sketch it out on paper, doesn't need to look good, it just needs to give you an idea of what the application does for the user. Try to keep it as simple and intuitive as possible. Then take it to a mock up tool there are several, and make an interactive version of it, and try it out on people. Your family and friends are going to be nice and not say what they really feel so tell them to be brutal, go for the emotional damage if you will. You need to know if it's shit before coding.

   Then once you have the UI/UX designed, you can approach data model, and the rest. But first understand the problem or question you try to solve for, and the users of the app, design around that, and the rest will fall in place.

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2. dccoolgaiMay 2015
   Nice breakdown - I love Weinschenk's work. I would highly recommend "100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People".
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3. fcardinauxDec 2012
   100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People - Susan Weinschenk. This is the book from which I learned the most this year. It provides the reader with 100 applicable and up to date insights into human psychology: how people see, read, think, decide, etc. Very useful and well organized.

   http://www.amazon.com/Things-Designer-People-Voices-Matter/d...

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4. msutherlJul 2012
   Thanks dude. Totally agree about Designing with the Mind in Mind. Another similar book is 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People. Here's a little gem that summarizes some of that material: http://uxmag.com/articles/psychological-usability-heuristics

   Excited to check out some of the stuff I haven't come across there.

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5. DavidParmeleeJun 2017
   I have a few suggestions at the intersection of psychology/neuroscience and UX.

   I found Universal Principles of Design to be a good read that talks about human-computer interaction with some examples of psychology. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a psychology book that often gets quoted in interaction design theory. Another one I’ve read is Emotional Design.

   While About Face and Designing for the Digital Age are more general interaction design books, these have an extensive discussion on user goals, which I've extended a bit in the ebook I'm writing.

   While I haven’t read it yet, Dr. Susan Weinschenk wrote 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about People. She’s a behavioral scientist who has worked in UX for over 30 years. Her site is at http://www.theteamw.com.

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