Knowing how people will use something is essential

Market segmentation s a natural result of the vast differences among people

Everything has a personality: everything sends an emotional signal. Even where this was not the intention of the designer, the people who view the website infer personalities and experience emotions. Bad websites have horrible personalities and instill horrid emotional states in their users, usually unwittingly. We need to design things-products, websites, services-to convey whatever personality and emotions are desired.

I believe that robots should only have faces if they truly need them

Am I an Apple bigot? No. I can critique their products and their customer service philosophy. But overall, they do better than any other player.

Products were once designed for the functions they performed. But when all companies can make products that perform their functions equally well, the distinctive advantage goes to those who provide pleasure and enjoyment while maintaining the power. If functions are equated with cognition, pleasure is equated with emotion; today we want products that appeal to both cognition and emotion.

And to get real work experience, you need a job, and most jobs will require you to have had either real work experience or a graduate degree.