What is the purpose, after all?

Let's do a useful post... So, remember I was talking in the last post about my Kindle and how useful it is? That's it: use.ful. According to my useful dictionary, useful is: 

"Able to be used for a practical purpose or in several ways."

Please guys, keep this in mind. Doesn't matter for what. If you build a website, create a template that is first useful, then beautiful. If you write a business plan, create it in a short and useful way. If you are doing a college paper, write only important and relevant things. Sometimes we meet people that like to write. So they write. A lot. Of unnecessary words.

I kinda understand why is so hard for people to do this... Most of the things you do, you are doing to other people. Building a website? For clients. Business plan? For stakeholders (you can even be one of them). College paper? Professor. What happens is: we look at these projects as if they were for ourselves. Se we add lots of bullshit. We can try this new exercise: empathy. Remove your eyes from your head (literally) and put them inside the head of the target of the project. And start imagining how they perceive the situation. Let's check it for our three cases:

1. Website: what the user wants is an easy and pleasant way to find the information he is searching for. That's why a good combination between design and content is necessary. If you put only content, the user may not feel comfortable on your page; if you put only design, the user will think your page, your company (and yourself) are useless. There is nothing wrong with a clean and intuitive design!
2. Business Plan: "man, I'm putting my money here. You don't need to show me how beautiful your word doc is. Show me how my money will bring me more money. That's what I want as an investor." Ok... I admit... For me, Design Thinking is one of the best tools for visualizing business plans. But again... It's not only about design: it's about it's combination with information.
3. College Paper: duude! This old man has to read and evaluate 100+, 200+, sometimes 300+ papers! And you have to write only one. So don't fill with bullshit: keep it clean and objective. If the professor says "at least 100 pages!", fill these 100 pages with something nice. Is it possib-? Yes.

The thing is: doesn't matter the scenario you are going through: try do to things in a simple and elegant way. Look at this blog: it's not the most beautiful, but you find what you are looking for, right?

Got it? Cool :)