I will start with what Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress says:
"You have to remember that a person’s goal in life is probably not to use a web application. People have a million things in their lives"
Understand your clients first and then user
Some designers boast about their feeling towards users and claim to make web sites for the users. Please do yourself a favour and understand the business requirements first. Most of the times the client will say "Hey ! that’s cool, I want something like that". It’s very hard to convince such person of your ideas and talk online sense. But be wise in asking questions, getting the sense of the client’s business, competition and product/services. Never base your demo on how cool it is, base your demo on how useful it is; for your clients and their users.
Develop design thinking
Do you think on paper or screen or directly in photoshop ? Don’t become the slave of one particular tool or have fetish with following certain types of processes. Be a design person and start appreciating things around you. Observe, observe and observe some more. Hear, touch and feel things. Talk to people, why they like something and what they do not like. Try to see and appreciate works of artists using various other mediums. Become an art consumer. Notice icons, typography, colour palettes, etc not just on web, but also in print, advertising, television, movies, etc.
Understand the new web – from consumption to participation.
Still many web designers have not realized that they need to think beyond brochures / flash gimmicks. We need to understand the difference between visitors and users. It’s useless to come up with with some grand idea which is very artistic but not going to be used. Designing the site for user participation is very different from designing static web sites. Facebook, Myspace, Delicious, Digg, Slashdot are example of user’s web. They are not grand on design but still very high on usage and usability cos they let you do what you want to do.
Become an online person
Business owner can take you through his requirements, you can design a usable and colourful web site based on your experience. But what if someone tells you to build your own facebook/twitter or asks you to integrate with such web sites. How people behave on web these days, what colours they like, how do they interact and so on are all part of the web culture and you need to be in that culture and not a silent spectator. For example, I can still see that people still fail to make a decent sign in / sign up process.
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