Said Achmiz comments on Generalized Hangriness: A Standard Rationalist Stance Toward Emotions

[Said Achmiz]

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This is also very, very true in UX design (and all similar fields such as print design, etc.).

Edit: This is why “I didn’t like X” or “X seems ugly” or “I have a hard time reading X” is extremely valuable feedback, and any designer is always happy to hear it. On the other hand, “X is designed wrong because [criticism of specific design decision]” is basically worthless feedback, and almost never helps in any way.

Edit 2: Note that the above is the opposite of what people’s intuitions tell them constitutes valuable feedback. Non-designers often think that “I didn’t like it” or “it’s ugly” is unhelpful, and they try to be more helpful by making specific criticisms (like “the text is justified; it shouldn’t be”). Coming from a layperson, this attempt to be helpful is actually the diametric opposite of an improvement, turning useful feedback into useless advice.

Edit 3: The most useful feedback is the one that tells me what is the specific problem you are experiencing. The subjective nature of the feedback is important!

(And, really, the rest of the comments on the post “Incorrect hypotheses point to correct observations”, as well as the post itself. Highly relevant!)