Analysis Paralysis!!

Well that phrase pretty much explains it all doesnt it! But heres my take on it. Have you ever been at that point when your at the mall in a store trying to buy yourself a pair of pants and you spend 45 mins looking at all different kinds of pants. Then you do color, sizes, styles, cuts, high waist low waist...the list never ends. Well what happens? you give up eventually, get stressed and say to your self agghhhh il just do this another time.

So heres where design comes in. When you analyse a design, feature or element to the extent where you drive your self nuts about it. eventually your going to give up and freeze. Then your going to end up settling with a mediocre design. Questions are good in the design process. But how many and why your questioning the design should be of top priority. Dont get into minute details that take the life out of you.

Some quick liners to think about when you are designing for users.

-Past experiences define future behavior.

-Ask. Dont assume.

-You are not who you are designing for.

-The more you break the design down the easier it gets to act upon.

-Design to address need not want.

Impact- a powerful six letter word!

Even microsoft fonts give impact the respect it deserves. Open word and select the font Impact and then type anything. You'l see what im talking about. What am i trying to get at??
When your doing a write or a design the word impact plays a very important part. Remember a time when you saw 5 different websites at a time and 2 days later all you remember is one site. Dont you think this is so because it had something distinctive or an element on the site that managed to create the 'Impact' factor for you.
Now ofcourse if you see the word impact in a different light and think it only means that the design needs to be loud, bold, noticeable, in the face...so as to create the impact well then your wrong. The little MSN fellow that launches you IM is a perfect example of what im trying to say. Come on now dont lie...if your a power surfer and spend more than 5 hours on the computer daily then there are days when you dream of the little fellow. You see the IMPACT.