If you had asked me who I am as a UX practitioner or what my design philosophy is at the beginning of my undergraduate career in UX, I probably would have said something along the lines of “I design to make pretty things.” But now, three years later, I have realized there is not only so much more to design and UX than making pretty things, but my values and who I am as a person shape the way I approach UX. Throughout my undergraduate career, I have learned so much about user experience and design as a whole, I now better understand what I personally believe in and use that to make my own unique design approach. There are five beliefs that I have developed in my education and work experience and hold dearly to me that make up my UX philosophy.

When a user encounter's an error, it is never the user's fault; it is the design's fault.
Back in my first semester in the UX program, we read the book The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. This book entirely changed the way I saw design and how designers should go about their process. It opened my eyes up to what human-centered design really is. The chapter on errors is what really struck me. For some reason, I had never thought of the design being at fault when an error occurs. I had always blamed myself when making an error. The way Norman explains how it is the designer’s responsibility to reduce those errors made me understand the importance of UX designers. When I read the quote “We should deal with the error by embracing it, be seeking to understand the causes and ensuring they do not happen again. We need to assist rather than punish or scold,” I knew that I wanted to help reduce these design errors, and it is something I still live by when I go through the design process today.

You must know, understand, and empathize with your users to truly design.
Throughout my time learning and practicing UX, I have learned the importance of user research, and it is something that I have developed a passion in. Growing up, I have always had a curious nature and have been very interested in understanding people. Conducting user research and talking to people has allowed me to satisfy that curiosity. I have found in past projects where I have not conducted thorough enough user research and did not really understand the users, the designs were not as strong or useful as they could have been. When I actually know and understand my users, I am able to empathize with them, and it is much easier to ideate and design. User research is a large priority of mine when it comes to my design philosophy because I know what my users’ needs and wants are and can design for them.

When a design is not made usable for all people, it is not a good design.
During my first internship, my mentor introduced me to accessibility by showing me a video of her conducting accessibility and usability testing on an app with a screen reader user. This made me realize the importance of making sure all designs and products are accessible for everyone no matter their ability. In the last two years, I have spent a lot of my time reading and learning about accessibility in tech. From this learning, I have adapted two very similar but different design ideologies into my UX philosophy: universal design and inclusive design. I learned about universal design from reading the book Accessibility for Everyone by Laura Kalbag. Laura states that “…universal design creates products for the widest possible audience, which includes, but isn’t limited to, people with disabilities.” I have learned about inclusive design from a few different sources, but my main source of inspiration is Kat Holmes, Director of UX at Google. Kat says that “inclusive design is not about creating one thing for all people…but it’s about creating a shared diversity of ways to participate in a place with a sense of belonging.” 

While universal design is about creating designing a product that is usable and accessible for as many people as possible with various abilities, often using accessibility standards and guidelines, inclusive design is about including those excluded groups in your design process and not just making something accessible for them, but giving them a great and inclusive user experience. I believe that using both universal design and inclusive design methods will lead to a better user experience for all people.

UX design and research is not a standardized process, but a set of methods and approaches.
For my first few projects in UX design, I followed a very linear process of research to synthesis to ideation to design to testing the design. With more experience, I realized that each project and its process is unique based on the problem and how each designer interprets it, and it is usually not linear. The book The Design Way by Harold G. Nelson and Erik Stolterman discusses how questioning and asking the right questions provides direction to the designer’s process, which I have come to learn and take into my UX philosophy. I have also discovered from the book Universal Methods of Design by Bella Martin and Bruce Hanington that there are so many methods that I can use into my design process depending on what my goals for the project are and what is the best way to accomplish those goals. Design provides the tools and approaches, but it is up to the designer how to use them in their process.

Design and user research are never finished.
I have learned from constant feedback sessions over the years that there is always room for improvement in your design. Design is never perfect; thus, it is never finished. It is a constant cycle of iteration, learning new things, and improving. Along with this, technology, society, and people are always changing, so design must change with the times. While a design may be excellent at one point, in a year or two, people’s attitudes change, and the design may not be as good as it once was. Design must change along with society and emerging technology, so it is never finished in this sense, too. And that is why we must continuously be talking with our users and receiving feedback to understand how they are changing, as well.

These five beliefs of my UX philosophy strongly influence how I approach user research and design, and who I am not only as a researcher and designer, but as a person. Just as design and user research is never finished, so is my UX philosophy. As I continue growing and learning as a UX practitioner and a person, I expect my values to change along with my UX philosophy.
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