Sometimes quotes really struck me as very much to the point and useful. I keep them with me over the years as food for reflection.
- Jakob Nielsen: Life is too short to click on everything in “Sites By Design”, author Ann M. Mack, IQ Interactive Report, AdWeek Online, 4 September 2000, still partly online. Nielsen emphasizes in the article for a website to make clear within 10 seconds what the purpose and message is. Otherwise a visitor will click away. This is a somewhat similar advice as to prevent what Vincent Flanders calls Mystery Meat Navigation There the navigation is preventing a user to memorize what purpose a navigational item has.
- Henry Ford: If I had have asked my users, they would have told me they wanted a faster horse, in other words, don’t always listen too closely to your customers as they do not always envision the future. Of course this does not imply not to try to understand your customer. It means you will have to understand what other questions to ask to get to the underlying needs waiting to be fullfilled.
The source of this quote is unknown to me. - Kelly Johnson (1910-1990, a lead engineer, manager and board member at Lockheed): KISS – Keep it Simple and Stupid . Try to avoid complexity and keep it at simple as possible. This usually helps me in starting to cope with difficult processes or tasks. Many people have a tendency to make things worse through more complexity. It means more work to manage as well as money to spend. More about Johnson in Wikipedia.