I’m going to open my new column Evolution of XD Principles with a quotation that actually contradicts my position:

“If you do it right, it will last forever.”—Massimo Vignelli

He’s wrong. Massimo is a very well-known, well-respected Italian designer who has impressed the world by successfully innovating products in a variety of disparate product spaces. But he’s wrong.

Design should always accomplish one key thing: demonstrate a thorough understanding of the people who will engage with a solution. A design should accommodate the well-defined mental model of those engaging with an experience. However, a challenge for UX designers is this: mental models represent collections of knowledge—and knowledge is never static. Forever is a fallacy.

With this premise in mind, my goal for this column is to write a series of articles that challenge traditional experience-design principles in a way that explores next-generation—and forgotten, last-generation—experience-design strategies.

Join me, as I explore such topics as why ugly products sometimes succeed, how some companies can dictate rather than accommodate usability patterns, and the hidden value of a user experience with a tinge of dishonesty. I’ll be leading you on a journey that will take us off the beaten path—one on which the only constant is change. Read More