Yes, it’s true.

Your users are dicks. They are a bunch of selfish knobs who have no appreciation for your efforts.

This is no reason to pander to them. After all, if they knew what they were doing, they’d have your job.

I’ve been seeing some alarming things lately. There’s a book out there called “worship at the altar of the user” or something like that. I’m not going to bother looking it up.

Here’s the thing… as a UX professional, I know the success of what I do depends on user adoption. I also know that my expertise gives me the ability to sway and influence users, to give them new opportunities and to move beyond what is common.

I agree that testing is important, and can inform many things, but I don’t rely on it to tell me any answers.

My friend Alan had a great quote “Don’t use research as a drunkard uses a lamp post, for support rather than illumination”

I have a similar one that I use “Stop using the rear-view mirror to figure out where you’re going”

In response to an earlier post about timeline inspiration, I have to point this example out.

I found this thrilling in it’s simplicity, interaction and detail. The graphics are crisp, subtle and effective… the interaction is smooth, with quick, clear transitions.

A great example of effective design.

I found this definition of an “event” in my girlfriends CFA certification prepatory materials and found it quite appealing.

Especially in thinking about information architecture and rich media design this definition helps to identify and enumerate how a rich UI must be cataloged.

Proper user experience evaluation is filtering a set of task outcomes available through the user interface and determining which one is most intutive for the identified target user base and/or is the most efficient stepwise.

I’ve seen some good “matrix” event tables for mouse over behaviors but there needs to be a better way to map these outcomes visually in context. Any suggestions?