How UX designers sleep at night

Quick thought: For many designers working on a big project is nerve-wracking or at least somewhat stressful. They are constantly wondering: will this work? will people like it? will it be effective? have we covered all the bases? The questions at this point can be overwhelming.

I’ve noticed recently one huge benefit of usability testing that nobody really talks about: peace of mind. When I’m working on a big project with lots of moving parts nothing helps me rest as easy as after I’ve done usability testing on it. For then I know where the bodies are…what problems the design has that I didn’t know about before. Testing really takes the stress out of design for me because I’ve already seen where it works and where it doesn’t.

Prototyping is the same. People who ruthlessly prototype are in a big way setting their mind at ease because they’ve seen the future…they know what works and what doesn’t. That’s a pretty big deal…people work better when they are calm and fully understand the situation they’re in. When they don’t…when they’re not sure what’s working and what isn’t…it’s not quite as easy to sleep at night.