The end-users’ needs should be defined by market research, not gut. Design should be based on the data provided on the customer. Always ask for solid customer insights based on CRM, focus groups and usability results.

It’s important to understand the goal of a site, portal and/or page before designing, especially passing judgement. In the end, it is the designer’s job to align the business objective with the end-users’ needs.

HTML is a subset of ML, right?

UX is a subset of X.

That’s where I’m heading with my thinking.

What you write is true: “We don’t always have the fortune of working for the Users”: but it’s true as long as we think that “working for” means building something that’s 100% interesting and useful for our target in the short-term period, putting in the spotlight just the user’s needs. In the agency environment, it’s unusual to work directly for the user: the real priority is the client’s need.

This doesn’t mean the user / consumer is not the most important thing. It’s the opposite: users are crucial.

Brands build relationship with consumers, the agency works for the client, but with the objective of building a relationship between the brand and the client.

In other words, giving priority to the client means very often giving priority to the consumer. This is why Experience Design considers the User as a fundamental part. The agency must listen, embrace and energize the community of consumers in order to meet the brand objectives.

We don’t always work directly for the user in every single thing we do, but I think that – if we step back and see the big picture – we work for the user (even if sometimes indirectly).

In my blog tagline, I use the term “human experience,” but even that is vague and rather lofty. The human experience is about life and death and sickness and love and success and happiness. I’d like to think that while our work is certainly important, we aren’t drastically changing the human condition.

So yeah, I’m stuck. I haven’t found a word I really like, that better describes that we’re making stuff to help make people’s lives better. Maybe I’ll just leave it at that.

I think a lot of us have come into that banner-ad scenario. The key (to me, anyway) is not to look at it as a banner ad and shrug, but as real estate that brand decided to open in that environment.

The technical parameters have been set: so how can we advocate on behalf of the audience given this space? What parts of the narrative will be useful, fun, or add to the experience of the setting they’re in?