Our team decided to interview the most intriguing creators on good design and test their works with the Attention Insight platform. It predicts how user’s attention distributes in design. We hope these short talks will inspire you and give some useful insights on catchy design. Enjoy
We are excited to introduce you Matt Borchert form Austin, TX. He is a designer and UX researcher for various companies. Matt loves to save time for others while sharing his experience collected through 15 years of work in design field. His Youtube channel is called Matt Borchert.
What defines a good design in your opinion?
I generally look at design as a tool for solving problems. A good design should solve the problem that it was created to address. A great design should solve that problem elegantly. As a designer gains skill and increases their confidence and ability, more complex designs will become as simplified as possible while also increasing their overall effectiveness. That to me speaks to the elegance of the solution.
As a designer gains skill and increases their confidence and ability, more complex designs will become as simplified as possible while also increasing their overall effectiveness.
What are the most common challenges you face while working in a design field?
We’re lucky now that there are many ways to effectively test the effectiveness of a design including user research, analytic data, etc. That being said, even though we can evaluate the effectiveness of designs, it can still be common for people to push against a given solution because they have a differing opinion about the right way to handle the visual execution of the work. Because of this it’s very important that you build skills in communication and persuasive speaking in order to “sell” your work to those who may be inclined to push against it. Coming into any situation being prepared to defend the work against various challenges can set you up to have a much smoother journey in that particular design project.
What is your favorite project you’ve ever done and why?
I was able to run user research on a process to help get online products put into production all across the world. This was referred to as internationalization and localization. Great work should provide value to as many people as possible, and getting the opportunity to help those involved in that process was very impactful to me. In any creative field that it is important for all of us to stand up for what we think is right, and I have a strong personal belief that the world is now a global community, and a great design should be a solution for everyone across the world who can pull value from it.
I have a strong personal belief that the world is now a global community, and a great design should be a solution for everyone across the world.
Would you share 3 habit recommendations you think are crucial for success?
1. Exercise. While you might not immediately think of exercise when you think of design or creativity in general, I believe that a healthy body supports a healthy mind. Mental health is extremely important to consistently focus on and improve, and exercise for me has been the most effective tool I have in improving my mental health. I have found my personal success improve exponentially since I started focusing more on my mental health through the action of focusing more on my physical health. Those two things are closely linked and I encourage everyone to push themselves physically so they can see the huge benefits for their creative endeavors.
Teaching people not only helps you help those around you lead a better life, but it also helps you think more critically about how and why you do things the way that you do.
2. Surround yourself with talented people who want to see you succeed. Those you surround yourself with have such a huge impact on your personal and professional life. It’s important that we spend the time we have both inside and outside of work with people who can push us to do our best, while also offering us a level of support that sets us up to achieve great things. Do your best to surround yourself who you think are better than you in some ways so you can learn from them while helping them learn from you.
3. Share your knowledge with others. I used to operate in design with the thought that I should learn as much as I could while also keeping anything I learned to myself. I looked at it as gaining unique selling points that would make me a more valuable designer than those who did not have the same skills that I had. Ultimately that was a shallow way to live a life for me, and once I found myself actively trying to teach others the skills I had acquired, I found myself becoming more happy as well as more successful in the work that I was doing. Teaching people not only helps you help those around you lead a better life, but it also helps you think more critically about how and why you do things the way that you do. Beyond that, it helps you become a more effective communicator, which is a huge skill no matter what kind of work you take on in life.
Get inspired by Matt Borchert’s works: https://dribbble.com/mattborchert
Find out more at his official website: https://www.mattborchert.com/
