Intentional Design Inc.

Satisfying the cat: a user-centered design metaphor

Through the power of social media, where I gather this video has been circulating at the IA Summit, I can bring you this video by John Boykin. It’s a great way of explaining user-centered design to clients and related stakeholders. It’s along the same lines of what David S. Platt says in his book Why Software Sucks … and What You Can Do About It: Know thy user, for he is not thee. Platt uses real-world examples and statistics to illustrate his point about knowing your users, which works for audiences of developers and other industry insiders.

Boykin’s approach, in a YouTube video called Satisfy the Cat, works well to illustrate the relationship between web designer, client, developers, and end users, and why a user-centered design process, instead of a client-centered design process, is important to grease the wheels of business.