DESIGN and the USER

As a design student, I often find myself wondering; What is design? Is it art? is it a craft? Is problem-solving? What aim does it fulfill for humankind? What are my goals as a designer?
The answer to all these questions is the single word: Users. There is no design without a user. All design serves a singular goal: catering to the needs of the user. On the face of it, the needs of a user would correspond to the function of a design. A bag would be useless if it did not carry my belongings; a digital interface would fail I can not navigate it efficiently.

However, an important point to highlight is that the ‘need’ that I speak of may not exclusively be a functional aspect of a design. While functionality serves as a backbone for any design; we need to look for its purpose. I believe that design also plays a vital role in emotionally and experientially engaging with the user. Donald Norman, in his book ‘The Design of Everyday Thing,’ said and I quote, “Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible,”. the quote resonates with me if I were to look at the functional purpose of any design. However, a part of me also believes that good design can also make us aware of its existence and connect with us emotionally. To do that effectively we come back to the original word: the user. Without understanding the user and their environment a good design is hard to achieve.