Alan Cooper Design Quotations

Just how do I design if not with prototyping? An excellent question. The short answer is 'on paper.'

Define what the product will do before you design how the product will do it.

Design principle: Take things away until the design breaks, then put that last thing back in.

If we want users to like our software we should design it to behave like a likeable person: respectful, generous and helpful.

No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it.

There's a fundamental problem with how the software business does things. We're asking people who are masters of hard-edged technology to design the soft, human side of software as well. As a result, they make products that are really cool - if you happen to be a software engineer.

The payoff of a customer-centric approach to software and digital product design is substantial and long-lasting for both companies and their customers.

I have a cell phone that doesn't behave like a phone: It behaves like a computer that makes calls. Computers are becoming an integral part of daily life. And if people don't start designing them to be more user-friendly, then an even larger part of the population is going to be left out of even more stuff.

If we want users to like our software, we should design it to behave like a likeable person.

Design is not so much a design issue as a power struggle.