30 Eternal Quotes from Design Experts

Here is the set of the quotes by famous experts in the sphere of design of all the kinds. You can find the eternal tips which origin from great experience and deep knowledge of such famous experts as Paul Rand, Milton Glaser, Alan Cooper, Alina Wheeler, Jacob Nielsen, Jeffrey Zeldman, Jef Raskin and others. Most of the quotes have already become classic so we decided to put them to one amazing collection of golden thoughts on design.

“People think that design is styling. Design is not style. It’s not about giving shape to the shell and not giving a damn about the guts. Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world didn’t know it was missing.” (Paola Antonelli)

“Design is about making things good (and then better) and right (and fantastic) for the people who use and encounter them.” (Matt Beale)

“There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence.” (Massimo Vignelli)

“Bad design is smoke, while good design is a mirror.” (Juan-Carlos Fernandez)

“Define what the product will do before you design how the product will do it.” (Alan Cooper)

“No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it.” (Alan Cooper)

“If we want users to like our software we should design it to behave like a likeable person: respectful, generous and helpful.” (Alan Cooper)

“Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don’t have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen based on earlier experience.” (Jakob Nielsen)

“Even the best designers produce successful products only if their designs solve the right problems. A wonderful interface to the wrong features will fail.” (Jakob Nielsen)

“…pay attention to what users do, not what they say.” (Jakob Nielsen)

“On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. If users get lost on a website, they leave. If a website’s information is hard to read or doesn’t answer users’ key questions, they leave. Note a pattern here?” (Jakob Nielsen)

“Usability is like love. You have to care, you have to listen, and you have to be willing to change. You’ll make mistakes along the way, but that’s where growth and forgiveness come in.” (Jeffrey Zeldman)

“Art is an idea that has found its perfect visual expression. And design is the vehicle by which this expression is made possible. Art is a noun, and design is a noun and also a verb. Art is a product and design is a process. Design is the foundation of all the arts.” (Paul Rand)

“Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions; there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.” (Paul Rand)

“Designing a product is designing a relationship.” (Steve Rogers)

“Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop.” (Jeffrey Zeldman)

“A good designer can create a design that accommodates all the constraints and still delivers an elegant, satisfying experience to the user. A great designer can go beyond this and create a design that demonstrates that some of those constraints weren’t really there to begin with.” (Jesse James Garrett)

“Problems with visual design can turn users off so quickly that they never discover all the smart choices you made with navigation or interaction design.” (Jesse James Garrett)

“User-centered design means understanding what your users need, how they think, and how they behave – and incorporating that understanding into every aspect of your process.” (Jesse James Garrett)

“Good design, when it’s done well, becomes invisible. It’s only when it’s done poorly that we notice it. Think of it like a room’s air conditioning. We only notice it when it’s too hot, too cold, making too much noise, or the unit is dripping on us. Yet, if the air conditioning is perfect, nobody say anything and we focus, instead, on the task at hand.” (Jared Spool)

“Intuitive design happens when current knowledge is the same as the target knowledge.” (Jared Spool)

“Users do not care about what is inside the box, as long as the box does what they need done.” (Jef Raskin)

“What users want is convenience and results.” (Jef Raskin)

“An interface is humane if it is responsive to human needs and considerate of human frailties.” (Jef Raskin)

“Design is intelligence made visible.”  (Alina Wheeler)

“I never design a building before I’ve seen the site and met the people who will be using it.” (Frank Lloyd Wright)

“UI design is much more than just fitting together the puzzle pieces of a layout. To design an interface is to create function from form, to create structure while simplifying, and to illuminate while delighting.” (Jerry Cao)

“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” (Milton Glaser)

“The real issue is not talent as an independent element, but talent in relationship to will, desire, and persistence. Talent without these things vanishes and even modest talent with those characteristics grows.” (Milton Glaser)

“Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” (Robert L. Peters)

Originally collected for Tubik Blog