UX is LOVE

What do I mean by UX Love?

• UX love is anchored in unconditional love for the TRUTH. That love resides in both the heart and mind. The mind informs objective, unsentimental, data-driven decisions. The heart speaks to the human who is our audience. (Spock reference).
• Discover the True North, the prize to keep your eye on. “Never compromise the brand.” “Never inconvenience the user.” “Never sound spammy.” “Never interfere with the funnel.” These absolutes it inform the compromises and priorities that are part of real life. Stakeholders and development reality will limit your grand vision, so shoot for the moon (assuming the moon appeals to your user) and compromise while aiming for your True North. A year from now, the next incremental change will be going the right direction.
• Do I really need to say this? No ego! “User Centered Design” is misguided. If a product isn’t user-centered, it’s not design (it’s art – which is great but different). Defend your ideas fiercely, but for the user – not your ego.
• Empathy with the user. This is the heart part of the love. Define your audience, get to know your user, create personas. Know her motivation and goals. Know what she wants and how she behaves. Find out by talking to / surveying actual audience members as much as possible. Don’t assume you know what she wants or how she behaves.
• Understand and respect the organizational goals, even though they sometimes oppose user goals!
• Respect for developers. Involve them early on to define the project and ground it in the reality of the development environment. When they say something is impossible, find out why and tackle that. Advocate for the conditions that preclude implementing the ideal solution. “Just design the optimal experience and let dev figure it out.” A solid and seemingly simple idea will die before it gets funded if it requires paying off a technical debt that isn’t in the plan.