Dear User: Let's Be Friends
Presentation, article, and links about applying Dale Carnegie's lessons to the world of UX design
One of the best books on user experience design is Dale Carnegie’s 1936 classic How to Win Friends and Influence People. Your sales team has almost certainly read it. Have your designers? What lessons might one of the most influential books on human relations hold for people who design digital experiences for those very same humans?
Learn how to craft friendlier and more humane experiences by applying Carnegie’s “Nine Golden Principles to Become a Friendlier Person” to the design of digital things. Each principle is illustrated with a few choice examples of good and (hilariously) bad practices. If your app or site knows how to smile, your users might smile right back. Doesn’t that sound nice?
Resources and References
- How to Win Friends and Influence People on Wikipedia
- How to Win Friends and Influence People on Amazon
- The Grammar of Interactivity by Jonathan Richards on UX Booth
- Fill out this form on the Dale Carnegie Institute site to download Dale Carnegie's Secrets of Success, which appears to be the latest version of the Golden Book as I know it
- Video of Peter Stahl's Rhythm, Flow, and Style presentation at IxDA
- Screenshots of Despair (Tumblr)
- Confirm Shaming (Tumblr)
- Cruelest Opt Outs (Tumblr)
- Persuasion Planner Worksheet (PDF download)