designing in the dark: logics that compete with the user
Skills developed by software user interface designers to solve problems in communication, management, implementation, and other areas may influence design decisions in the absence of sufficient knowledge of user populations. Given today's rapid change in both faces to the software interface  user populations and software functionality  the first pass at a design may be made without sufficient understanding of the relevant goals and behaviors of the eventual users. Without this information, designers are less able to grasp user logic, and may rely on more familiar logics that are useful in other problem-solving arenas. Understanding how these approaches can affect a design may help us recognize them across a wide range of contexts and enable us to focus the human factors contribution to the design evolution process.
design logic user user software user interface interfaces communication management implementation influence knowledge change functional understandability relevance goals behavior informal affect help context human factors evolution process users