How to design for yourself for a client
It is very frustrating for me to hear people say “Design for the user.”
In my mind I always am saying “No shit.”
But that doesn’t mean do what the user wants. I still believe in designing for yourself.
Designing for yourself has a bad rap. It does produce a lot of terrible art that passes as design, and it leaves a lot of users thinking “what the hell is this and how do I use it?” It is also seen by many designers as arrogant design. I believe there is a successful way to design for yourself though and that is through empathy. If you successfully take on the role of the user, then you are still designing for yourself. The difference is that you’re using your experiences as a filter (such as your design knowledge and your experience using many more objects than the user).
If we completely design for users, rely on user research as absolute truth, then we forget to make design decisions. We forget who is in control. User research is not to create personas or scenarios at face value, it is to create designer empathy which should inform all design work for ourselves as designers and for our clients.