“Designer Luke Wroblewski argues that “using dummy content or fake information in the Web design process can result in products with unrealistic assumptions and potentially serious design flaws.” He also explains how these designs usually fail when real content is added.”

“‘Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.’ – says web designer and author Jeffrey Zeldman.”

Lots more here

“Old-school Usability espouses the idea that user activities are onerous tasks that they want to get out of the way as soon as possible. While this is true in some cases, usability is now widely understood to be more of a hygiene factor – something that can cause dissatisfaction if missing, but its presence cannot take you beyond lack of dissatisfaction.” - 90percentofeverything.com

The story about how Betty Crocker made their product more complicated in order to make it more interactive, and emotional. Really great stuff.