Goals Are the Reason Why We Perform Tasks


Before the digital age confronted us with cognitive friction, design was mostly an aesthetic thing, and one person's opinion on the quality of a given design was as good as anyone else's. Cognitive friction comes with interaction, and interaction is only necessary if there is a purpose, a goal. In this new light, the nature of design changes. The aesthetic component isn't lessened in any way. It is merely diluted by the larger demands of achieving the user's goals. This means that, unlike in earlier times, the quality of design isn't so much a matter of opinion and is much more amenable to systematic analysis. In other words, in the bright light of a user's goals, we can learn quite directly what design would suit the purpose, regardless of anyone's opinion or, for that matter, of aesthetic quality.

"Good interaction design" has meaning only in the context of a person actually using it for some purpose. You cannot have purposes without people. The two are inseparable. That is why the two key elements of our design process are goals and personas purposes and people.

What's more, the most important goals are personal ones, held only by the individual. Some real person is interacting with your product, not some abstract corporation, so you must regard people's personal goals as higher than the corporation's. Your users will do their best to achieve the business's goals, but only after their own personal ones are achieved. The most important personal goal is to retain one's dignity: to not feel stupid.

The essence of good interaction design is to devise interactions that let users achieve their practical goals without violating their personal goals.



Inmates Are Running the Asylum, The. Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy &How to Restore the Sanity - 2004 publication
ISBN: B0036HJY9M
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 170

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