> I stare at the page for a second. My brain hurts. I hate it. It felt... distracting, maximal, cluttered, weirdly transparent. Little sparkles animate over the page. > "How old are you?" I asked. > "Twenty-five." > "Of course you are." You will never, ever, ever do good design while holding your audience in contempt. They are fully and completely entitled to their aesthetic preferences and those preferences have abs…
I’d argue you should always design for yourself and build products you want. When your needs aren’t in alignment with your user’s needs then you’re the wrong person for the job anyway. User feedback is important for getting additional insights, but the implementation of the feedback should always feel correct to you too.
I like your sentiment, but I think this only works at the start. After the initial MVC phase, you discover additional potential target audiences, and often (but not always) it makes more sense to apply empathy and adapt the software to also benefit their needs, rather than just abandoning then as "not the intended audience".