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It’s time we retire John Doe — here’s how to design with real data

UX > Doe, bye-bye Joe!

István Jakab
UX Collective

Since the reign of England’s King Edward III (1327–1377), John Doe has been the most famous nobody. A precious alias for a hypothetical ‘everyman’ or, since the birth of modern design, a general placeholder of ‘anyone’. Together with Lorem Ipsum, they have been the Glorious Dummies for decades, but it is time for a change.

We design real applications for real users, and they deserve better than such a passive solution. The limitations of using dummy data reduce the realistic feel of any design project, and neglect complete dedication. In order to really create great user experience, we, as UX Designers, should be more clever.

Why forget dummy data?

Testing issues

We need to make sure our design will work with every possible data loaded to the application. This means working with real constraints, real specifications and getting ready for every form of input (different types, lengths, sizes etc.).

For instance, as a native Hungarian, I always struggle with fonts not supporting the letter ‘ő’, which is rare in other languages, but essential in mine. There were times I only tested its availability in a font when half of the branding work was…

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