The usefulness of a product depends on its users. To understand if a product is useful, you have to experience it from the perspective of the user, not yours, the designer. Designers need to learn who their product is for, empathize with them, understand their problems, and then come up with the best possible solution.

Found at “The Dieter Rams “Ten Principles of Good Design” | by Bruce Sterling | Medium” on 2025-01-21 23:55:45 +01:00.

Good design makes a product useful — A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic criteria. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could detract from it.—Bruce Sterling, citing Dieter Rams

See related design should not dominate things.

Braun T3 pocket radio, 1958. The Braun T3 pocket radio captures the essence of Dieter Ram’s design.