Love thy neighbor, is Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees when questioned about the laws and commandments. According to Matthew 22:39 Jesus says,

“‘…’Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

In 1958, Charles and Ray Eames — in The India Report — say while comparing a ‘Lota’ to the attitude that they hoped would be created by the National Institute of Design,

“… an attitude be generated that will appraise and solve the problems of our coming times with the same tremendous service, dignity and love that the Lota served its time.”

Both these quotes speak of love for others. You can love someone only if you know them.

Love thy user. Know thy user.

Your users are almost never like you. They don’t think like you. You know your product inside-out. You created it and were with it through every iteration. You decided how it would behave at every phase. But your users might be seeing it for the first time. They might be using it to accomplish a set of goals. They might have to use your product under peculiar conditions. They might just be poking around to see if it’s fun to play with.

Knowing your user will help you predict how they will behave. You won’t have to take design decisions based on your subjective preference. Knowing your user is important because it might reveal incorrect assumptions that you might have made. Knowing your users will give you insights into how they behave and where or when they struggle to get to an objective.

Charles Eames once told Ashoke Chatterjee — a former director of NID — that love is seeing the world through another persons eyes. Look through your users’ eyes to see what they need. This will allow you to create a product that not only empowers them but also attracts and captivates them.

A major part of being a designer, is thinking like one. Basic concepts like human needs, function, form and shape and the way systems and structures work are essential for a designer to think of solutions for a problem. The following is a list of my understanding of these concepts. This list is by no means complete. I will be adding or editing concepts as my learning increases.

Symbol

Is a means of representing any object, any person, any idea or situation with some type of mark.

Component

Is not just a part of a whole. It is a part of a whole which cannot be taken  away without changing the very nature of of the whole.

Complex

It comes from the Latin word embrace. Complex is not complicated. It is not the opposite of simple. Complicated has a quality of confusion to it. A complex thing might have many parts but would still posses orderliness. A complex thing may or may not be difficult to comprehend.

System

It comes from the Greek word sustema. A system is a complex whole of parts. These parts are related although the connections between them may or may not be visible. To understand a system, one should get a holistic view of the system and not should observe the way in which each parts affect each other in isolation from the system.

Structure

It is the arrangement of parts. It is also the manner in which they are arranged. Parts interconnect and interelate in order to make the structure work.

Form & Shape

All shapes are forms but not all forms are shapes. The difference being that shape is used for what is known and form is used for all types of figures – familiar or unfamiliar.

Display

Display means an arrangement of things or images so that they are deliberately presented in a way that it gets noticed. Display also refers to that part of the machine that must be watched, so that it can be controlled based on the information received from it.

I have knowingly not used design or art in any definition.  You may or may not agree with some of my definitions. They are always open to discussion.