Design for People
Remember that the purpose of any software application is to enable some group of people to accomplish a specific set of tasks. So, the first things to establish when designing your application are:
- who your users are
- what you want to enable them to do
For example, you may be designing an application that will enable engineers (software, electrical, or mechanical) to create diagrams. You may be designing an application that will enable system administrators to configure and monitor a web server. You may be designing an application that will help elementary school students to learn math.
The important thing is that you know your audience, and you understand both their goals and the tasks necessary to achieve those goals. There are a large number of professional interaction designers who write books and teach courses on design methods that can help with this process, many of which are extremely useful— see the Bibliography for a selection. Most of these methods, however, boil down to specific ways of understanding your users, understanding the tasks you want to help them accomplish, and finding ways to support those tasks in your application.