{"id":4730,"date":"2016-11-27T15:41:13","date_gmt":"2016-11-27T15:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marvel7077.wpengine.com\/?p=4730"},"modified":"2016-11-27T15:41:13","modified_gmt":"2016-11-27T15:41:13","slug":"art-designing-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/blog\/art-designing-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Designing With Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to make useful, friendly software for real people.<\/h2>\n

One of the things I love about making software is that it\u2019s a deeply mental exercise, chock full of heady processes, abstractions, and interconnected pathways.<\/p>\n

You can fill your brain with the practical nuts and bolts side of it\u2014research, strategy, prototyping, programming, UI, operations, and more. Lots more.<\/p>\n

And if that\u2019s not enough? Indulge yourself in metrics and performance. Every last detail can be tested, quantified and optimized to the fullest. Get high on KPIs and keep your eyes on your ROI!<\/p>\n

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\"Every last detail can be tested, quantified and optimized to the fullest.\"<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

The problem is\u2026with so much to think about, and so many logistics to obsess over, it\u2019s easy to forget the reason you\u2019re doing any of this in the first place:<\/p>\n

????\ufe0f YOUR SOFTWARE EXISTS TO HELP PEOPLE! ????<\/strong><\/p>\n

Designers usually call this notion User Experience<\/em> or Empathy<\/em>. I think those names stink. They\u2019re buzzwordy and vague enough to mean different things in different contexts.<\/p>\n

I think we should call it what it really is: Designing With Heart.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t something that\u2019s the responsibility of one specific team in your company, or one step in a process that you can check off. It\u2019s a core value that informs every decision you make.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what that means in practice.<\/p>\n

At the other end of all your strategy and metrics and tech, there are real people<\/strong>. Living, breathing people\u200a\u2014\u200awho are busy dealing with their weird life, arguing with their kids, trying to figure out what\u2019s for dinner.<\/p>\n

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\"At the other end of all your strategy and metrics and tech, there are real people.\" <\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

When you build software, you\u2019re painstakingly inventing a machine that stands in your place, feigns sentience, and interacts with these people on your behalf so they can accomplish something meaningful.<\/p>\n

Your software is not just a bunch of code and UI you smushed together. It\u2019s also a compilation of your best ideas, your best intentions, your desire to help others, your compassion, your feelings, your soul.<\/p>\n

Your software is YOU.<\/p>\n

(That is, if you believe in the art of it. And you should, if you give a damn about doing it right.)<\/p>\n

When you see things in this light, you\u2019ll notice that a lot of software is dull and lifeless.<\/p>\n

Consider your bank\u2019s website, or your insurance company\u2019s billing system. They\u2019re probably cold and impersonal. That\u2019s because the designers treated their job as a mechanical sequence: they took a set of requirements, invented imaginary personas, wrote user stories, and sprinted their way through the work until the requirements were met. All head, no heart.<\/p>\n

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Your software exists to help people!<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n