User-centered design

User-centered design (UCD) or user-driven development (UDD) is a framework of processes (not restricted to interfaces or technologies) in which usability goals, user characteristics, environment, tasks and workflow of a product, service or process are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. User-centered design can be characterized as a multi-stage problem-solving process that not only requires designers to analyze and envision the way users are likely to consume a product, but also to validate their assumptions with regard to the user behavior in real world tests. These tests are conducted with/without actual users during each stage of the process from requirements, pre-production models and post production, completing a circle of proof back to and ensuring that 'development proceeds with the user as the center of focus.' Such testing is necessary as it is often very difficult for the designers of a product to understand intuitively what a first-time user of their design experiences, and what each user's learning curve may look like. User-centered design is common in the design industry and when used is considered to lead to increased product usefulness and usability. User-centered design (UCD) or user-driven development (UDD) is a framework of processes (not restricted to interfaces or technologies) in which usability goals, user characteristics, environment, tasks and workflow of a product, service or process are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. User-centered design can be characterized as a multi-stage problem-solving process that not only requires designers to analyze and envision the way users are likely to consume a product, but also to validate their assumptions with regard to the user behavior in real world tests. These tests are conducted with/without actual users during each stage of the process from requirements, pre-production models and post production, completing a circle of proof back to and ensuring that 'development proceeds with the user as the center of focus.' Such testing is necessary as it is often very difficult for the designers of a product to understand intuitively what a first-time user of their design experiences, and what each user's learning curve may look like. User-centered design is common in the design industry and when used is considered to lead to increased product usefulness and usability. The chief difference from other product design philosophies is that user-centered design tries to optimize the product around how users can, want, or need to use the product, rather than forcing the users to change their behavior to accommodate the product. The users thus stand in the center of two concentric circles. The inner circle includes the context of the product, objectives of developing it and the environment it would run in. The outer circle involves more granular details of task detail, task organization, and task flow. The term user-centered design was coined in Donald A. Norman's research laboratory in University of California, San Diego. The concept became widely popular after the publication of the book 'User-Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction' in 1986. The concept gained further attention and acceptance in his seminal book 'The Design of Everyday Things' (originally called 'The Psychology of Everyday Things'). In the book, Norman describes the psychology behind what he deems 'good' and 'bad' design through examples. He exalts the importance of design in our everyday lives, and the consequences of errors caused by bad designs. The books also include principles of building well-designed products. His recommendations are based on the needs of the user, leaving aside what he considers secondary issues like aesthetics. The main highlights of these are: Norman's overly reductive approach in the previous texts was readdressed by him later in his own publication 'Emotional Design'.:p.5 onwards. For example, the user-centered design process can help software designers to fulfill the goal of a product engineered for their users. User requirements are considered right from the beginning and included into the whole product cycle. These requirements are noted and refined through investigative methods including: ethnographic study, contextual inquiry, prototype testing, usability testing and other methods. Generative methods may also be used including: card sorting, affinity diagramming and participatory design sessions. In addition, user requirements can be inferred by careful analysis of usable products similar to the product being designed. Here are principles that will ensure a design is user centered: The goal of the User-Centered design is to make products which have very high usability. This includes how convenient the product is in terms of its usage, manageability, effectiveness and how well the product is mapped to the user requirements. Below are the general phases of User-Centered Design process: In the next steps, the above procedure is repeated to further finish the product. These phases are general approaches and factors like design goals, team and their timeline, and environment in which the product is developed, determine the appropriate phases for a project and their order. You can either follow a waterfall model, agile model or any other software engineering practice. UCD asks questions about users and their tasks and goals, then uses the findings to make decisions about development and design.UCD of a web site, for instance, seeks to answer the following questions: