Universal Principles of Design, Updated and Expanded Third Edition

190 User-Centered vs. User-Driven Design

A focus on understanding and meeting user needs versus simply implementing user requests.

A popular credo of early-twentieth-century hospitality and retail was, “The customer is always right”. The sentiment was fine enough, but the phrasing conflated being of service with being servile, which led to unhealthy and unintended consequences. As a result, this motto and service norm has largely fallen out of favor — except, somewhat surprisingly, in many design circles. With the rise of “user-centered design” and backlash against engineering/designer-centered design came a rise in designer servility: a mindset that design was about asking people what they want and giving it to them rather than understanding ...