Over at Semantic Foundry, designer extraordinaire, Will Evans, has a wonderful essay explaining how he uses wireframing as both a problem setting and a problem solving approach.
I pick my primary audience and the one activity which allows them to solve one goal quickly, effortlessly, elegantly. In this case, the primary audience wants to easily [...]

So, the user had just booked their ticket and was choosing their seat assignments when, out of no where, comes this error message:

What should the user do with this little tidbit of information?
An “Invalid State Error” sounds like someone entered the wrong US state abbreviation, but the system a minute ago confirmed the reservation. [...]

Interaction design is hard enough to do when the business model is clear. When the designer knows exactly how making a better design will increase the value of the company, (thereby increasing the chances they’ll get a raise if they do a good job,) it’s still hard to know what to do.
All one has to [...]