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Liz Danzico sought out the advice of digital designers and designer conspirers to ask them to respond to the following statement:

So you’re thinking about becoming a designer? If I could tell you only one thing about going into the field, my advice would be ___________ .

The suggestions ranged from the philosophical to the pragmatic. Below are the ones that resounded with me.

Focus on empathy and understanding problems

Being empathetic helps designers create things that move people.
- Jennifer Bove

Don't just fall in love with a solution and go full force and making it look great, but really make sure that whatever you design is filling a need in the world and has a purpose.
- Whitney Hess

When it comes to design, I'm a big believer in empathy, as are most IA/IXD's who invest in user research. Jennifer Bove's video focusses on this. Whitney Hess also hits on a similar point.

When it comes to finding solutions for people, I'm also a fan of JM Spool's "don't do anything stupid, don't do anything clever," although it's more about finding the middle ground between clever and stupid.

Embrace the unfamiliar to innovate

Be a champion of effortful study, the act of constantly tackling problems and challenges that lie at the very edge of your ability.
- Ryan Sims

I'm also a big fan of taking on new work that is unfamiliar in order to be innovative and improve one's skills. I love what Bill Buxton and Paula Scher have to say on this topic. Ryan Sims, also states it rather succinctly and points out that there will be dues to pay if you want the experience and wisdom.

Be passionate

Have undying, unending passion for what it is you're doing. You'll run up against people who don't understand, who don't want to pay for it, who don't respect it. Ultimately none of that matters if you have the passion to make that happen.
- John Kolko

Finally, I think the thing that I agree with most, whether it has to do with design or knitting or whatever you do, is that you have to be passionate.

If you don't believe that passion is important, or that you can't get you far without talent, I suggest watching A Man Named Pearl, the documentary about a self-taught topiary artist who, prompted by a bigoted comment, proves to everyone around him that hard work and passion are what matter.

http://interactiondesign.sva.edu/blog/entry/video_notes_from_the_field/

Holger Struppek has written an article describing the design and prototyping process for the redesign of the Wells Fargo ATM user interface by Pentagram. This is a rare, in-depth look at the prototyping process for an interface that we come into contact regularly.

The agency was contracted to abandon the prior touch screen/solid state UI, and transform the software to work with touch screen interfaces only and improve flow and visual design. There's some discussion of research considerations (environment, check scanning concerns), and excellent description of the design choices for button design, layout, and behavior, including the smart shortcut feature, which acts as a history-based shortcuts area for frequently-used features, and a deep look at the check deposit flow. I also appreciated the description of the physical factors of ATM screens and environments that affected contrast and positioning of controls.

http://physicalinterface.com/view/that-design-is-money

SEOmoz user chenry posted some i8nteresting data showing captcha's effect on conversion rates vs. reduction in spam. Chenry was given the task of eliminating spam that was being submitted through a web form. Disliking the captcha solution, he decided run a test to compare the data after adding captcha for a period of time, with data captured after turning captcha off. He made the following observation:

From the data you can see that with CAPTCHA on, there was an 88% reduction in SPAM but there were 159 failed conversions. Those failed conversions could be SPAM, but they could also be people who couldn’t figure out the CAPTCHA and finally just gave up. With CAPTCHA’s on, SPAM and failed conversions accounted for 7.3% of all the conversions for the 3 month period. With CAPTCHA’s off, SPAM conversions accounted for 4.1% of all the conversions for the 3 month period. That possibly means when CAPTCHA’s are on, the company could lose out on 3.2% of all their conversions!

The important data point seemed to be this: "159 total failed conversions while the CAPTCHA was on". There were no failed conversions when captcha was off, but they also got the spam. Interesting observation, and a number that's pretty significant if we're talking missed sales or signups I suppose.

Read the article for a look at the data and comments.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/captchas-affect-on-conversion-rates