“One of my colleagues at Adaptive Path often refers to design as being derived from user research. I can certainly see how one would come to that conclusion. In many of our projects, we’ll do a bunch of user interviews, generate a model based on the analysis of the transcripts, and map an architecture to that model. That becomes a foundation for the web site, and thus the user experience. I believe in this approach, but it’s just not at all how I work. Rather, I find my designs are more often inspired by research. I find that the best designs I’ve created are produced more like writing songs or short stories than conducting an experiment using the scientific method. They just hit me. So it was revealing to read Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Blink’ in which he discusses split-second decisions…”
Link:
http://www.veen.com/jeff/archives/000707.html
