Admired Practitioners: User Experience

User experience designers are assigned a wide variety of projects. Owing to my keen eye for details and my ability to work well in programming centric, physical computing and artistic production environments, I feel this area of work is perfectly suited for my abilities.

The first UED I came across is Donald Norman, famous for his book The Design of Everyday Things. 

"In the book, Norman uses the term "user-centered design" to describe design based on the needs of the user, leaving aside what he deems secondary issues like aesthetics. User-centered design involves simplifying the structure of tasks, making things visible, getting the mapping right, exploiting the powers of constraint, designing for error, explaining affordances and seven stages of action." -wikipedia

This is reminiscent of my post-it word "simplify".

Recently, a wonderful post regarding IE9's new logo introduced me to the importance of UED in software environments. From considering the emotion of users to the harmony between user interface and typographic style, UEDs oversee it all. Mary-Lynn Williams is lead in UE, although finding a broader range of information about her professional accomplishments is near impossible.

These designers apply a multidisciplinary approach reminiscent of University's educational style. In the line of more famous UEDs we can find Bill Buxton, a Canadian who's background includes music and computer science. It is also important to note the work of Steve Krug who also influences design for the web.