User-centered design
Encyclopedia
In broad terms, user-centered design (UCD) or pervasive usability is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product
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 foresee how users are likely to use a product, but also to test the validity of their assumptions with regards to user behaviour in real world tests with actual users. 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.
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.
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 diagraming and participatory design sessions. In addition, user requirements can be inferred by careful analysis of usable products similar to the product being designed.
All these approaches follow the ISO standard Human-centred design for interactive systems (ISO 9241-210, 2010).
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:
helps the user construct a mental model
of the document. Models help the user predict the effect(s) of their actions while using the document. Important elements (such as those that aid navigation
) should be emphatic. Users should be able to tell from a glance what they can and cannot do with the document.
, clearly labeled sections, page numbers, color coding, etc). Navigational elements should be consistent with the genre
of the document. ‘Chunking
’ is a useful strategy that involves breaking information into small pieces that can be organized into some type meaningful order or hierarchy
. The ability to skim
the document allows users to find their piece of information by scanning rather than reading. Bold and italic
words are often used.
style. Ornamental fonts and text in all capital letters are hard to read, but italics and bolding can be helpful when used correctly. Large or small body text is also hard to read. (Screen size of 10-12 pixel sans serif and 12-16 pixel serif is recommended.)
High figure-ground contrast
between text and background increases legibility. Dark text against a light background is most legible.
are needed. Short sentences are helpful, as well as short, well-written texts used in explanations and similar bulk-text situations. Unless the situation calls for it, do not use jargon
or technical terms. Many writers will choose to use active voice
, verbs (instead of noun strings
or nominals
), and simple sentence structure.
al situation. The rhetorical situation shapes the design of an information medium. There are three elements to consider in a rhetorical situation: Audience
, Purpose, and Context.
of the user's need may be created. It is a fictional character with all the characteristics of the user. Personas are created after the field research process, which typically consists of members of the primary stakeholder (user) group being observed on their behaviour, and additionaly answering questionnaires or participating in interviews, or a mixture of both. After results are gathered from the field research, they are used to create personas of the primary stakeholder group. Often, there may be several personas concerning the same group of individuals, since it is almost impossible to apply all the characteristics of the stakeholder group onto one character. The character depicts the a "typical" stakeholder, not an "average" individual in the primary stakeholder group, and is referred to throughout the entire design process. There are also what's called a secondary persona, where the character is not a member of the primary stakeholder group and is not the main target of the design, but their needs should be met and problems solved if possible. They exist to help account for further possible problems and difficulties that may occur even though the primary stakeholder group is satisfied with their solution. There is also an anti-persona, which is the character which the design process is not made for. Personas usually include a name and picture, demographics, roles and responsibilities, goals and tasks, motivations and needs, environment and context, and a quote that can represent the character's personality. Personas are useful in the sense that they create a common shared understanding of the user group for which the design process is built around. Also, they help to prioritize the design considerations by providing a context of what the user needs and what functions are simply nice to add and have. They can also provide a human face and existence to a diversified and scattered user group, and can also create some empathy and add emotions when referring to the users. However, since personas are a generalized perception of the primary stakeholder group from collected data, the characteristics may be too broad and typical, or too much of an "average joe". Sometimes, personas can have stereotypical properties also, which may hurt the entire design process. Overall, personas are a useful tool that can be used since designers in the design process can have an actual person to make design measure around other than referring to a set of data or a wide range of individuals.
created in the UCD process is a fictional story about the "daily life of" or a sequence of events with the primary stakeholder group as the main character. Typically, a persona that was created earlier is used as the main character of this story. The story should be specific of the events happening that relate to the problems of the primary stakeholder group, and normally the main research questions the design process is built upon. These may turn out to be a simple story about the daily life of an individual, but small details from the events should imply details about the users, and may include emotional or physical characteristics. There can be the "best case scenario", where everything works out best for the main character, the "worst case scenario", where the main character experiences everything going wrong around him or her, and an "average case scenario", which is the typical life of the individual, where nothing really special or really depressing occurs, and the day just moves on. Scenarios create a social context to which the personas exist in, and also create an actual physical world, instead of imagining a character with internal characteristics from gathered data an nothing else; there is more action involved in the persona's existence. A scenario is also more easily understood by people, since it is in the form of a story, and is easier to follow. Yet, like the personas, these scenarios are assumptions made by the researcher and designer, and is also created from a set of organized data. Some even say such scenarios are unrealistic to real life occurrences. Also, it is difficult to explain and inform low level tasks that occur, like the thought process of the persona before acting.
describes the interaction between an individual and the rest of the world. Each use case describes an event that may occur for a short period of time in real life, but may consist of intricate details and interactions between the actor and the world. It is represented as a series of simple steps for the character to achieve his or her goal, in the form of a cause-and effect scheme. Use cases are normally written in the form of a chart with two columns: first column labelled actor, second column labelled world, and the actions performed by each side written in order in the respective columns. The following is an example of a use case for performing a song on a guitar in front of an audience.
The interaction between actor and the world is an act that can be seen in everyday life, and we take them as granted and don't think too much about the small detail that needs to happen in order for an act like performing a piece of music to exist. It is similar to the fact that when speaking our mother tongue, we don't think too much about grammar and how to phrase words; they just come out since we are so used to saying them. The actions between an actor and the world, notably, the primary stakeholder (user) and the world in this case, should be thought about in detail, and hence use cases should are created to take these tiny interactions to occur.
An essential use case is a special kind of use case, also called an "abstract use case". Essential use cases describe the essence of the problem, and deals with the nature of the problem itself. While writing use cases, no assumptions about unrelated details should be made. In additions, the goals of the subject should be separated from the process and implementation to reach that particular goal. Below is an example of an essential use case with the same goal as the former example.
Use cases are useful because they help identify useful levels of design work. They allow the designers to see the actual low level processes that are involved for a certain problem, which makes the problem easier to handle, since certain minor steps and details the user makes are exposed. The designers' job should take into consideration of these small problems in order to arrive at a final solution that works. Another way to say this is that use cases breaks a complicated task in to smaller bits, where these bits are useful units. Each bit completes a small task, which then builds up to the final bigger task. Like writing code on a computer, it is easier to write the basic smaller parts and make them work first, and then put them together to finish the larger more complicated code, instead to tackling the entire code from the very beginning. The first solution is less risky because if something goes wrong with the code, it is easier to look for the problem in the smaller bits, since the segment with the problem will be the one that does not work, while in the latter solution, the programmer may have to look through the entire code to search for a single error, which proves time consuming. The same reasoning goes for writing use cases in UCD. Lastly, use cases convey useful and important tasks where the designer can see which one are of higher importance than others. Some drawbacks of writing use cases include the fact that each actions, by the actor or the world, consist of little detail, and is simply a small action. This may possibly lead to further imagination and different interpretation of action from different designers. Also, during the process, it is really easy to over-simplify a task, since a small task from a larger task may consist of even smaller tasks. Picking up a guitar may involved thinking of which guitar to pick up, which pick to use, and think about where the guitar is located first. These tasks may then be divided into smaller tasks, such as first thinking of what colour of guitar fits the place to perform the piece, and other related details. Tasks may be split further down into even tinier tasks, and it is up to the designer to determine what is a suitable place to stop splitting up the tasks. Tasks may not only be oversimplified, they may also be omitted in whole, thus the designer should be aware of all the detail and all the key steps that are involved in an event or action when writing use cases.
" (originally called "The Psychology of Everyday Things") was first published in 1986. In this book, Donald A. Norman
describes the psychology behind what he deems 'good' and 'bad' design through examples and offers principles of 'good' design. He exalts the importance of design in our everyday lives, and the consequences of errors caused by bad designs.
In his book, Norman uses the term "user-centered design" to describe design based on the needs of the user, leaving aside what he considers secondary issues like aesthetics. User-centered design involves simplifying the structure of tasks, making things visible, getting the mapping right, exploiting the powers of constraint, and designing for error. Norman's overly reductive approach in this text was readdressed by him later in his own publication "Emotional Design."
Other books in a similar vein include "Designing Pleasurable Products" by Patrick W. Jordan
, in which the author suggests that different forms of pleasure should be included in a user-centered approach in addition to traditional definitions of usability.
(typically including CAD
, CAM
and CAx
processes) can be typically characterized by the need for these solutions to serve the needs of a broad range of users, with each user having a particular job role and skill level. For example, a CAD digital mockup might be utilized by a a novice analyst, design engineer of moderate skills, or a manufacturing planner of advanced skills.
Product (business)
In general, the product is defined as a "thing produced by labor or effort" or the "result of an act or a process", and stems from the verb produce, from the Latin prōdūce ' lead or bring forth'. Since 1575, the word "product" has referred to anything produced...
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 foresee how users are likely to use a product, but also to test the validity of their assumptions with regards to user behaviour in real world tests with actual users. 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
Learning curve
A learning curve is a graphical representation of the changing rate of learning for a given activity or tool. Typically, the increase in retention of information is sharpest after the initial attempts, and then gradually evens out, meaning that less and less new information is retained after each...
may look like.
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.
UCD models and approaches
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 arenoted and refined through investigative methods including: ethnographic study, contextual inquiry, prototype testing, usability testing
Usability testing
Usability testing is a technique used in user-centered interaction design to evaluate a product by testing it on users. This can be seen as an irreplaceable usability practice, since it gives direct input on how real users use the system...
and other methods. Generative methods may also be used including: card sorting, affinity diagraming and participatory design sessions. In addition, user requirements can be inferred by careful analysis of usable products similar to the product being designed.
- Cooperative design: involving designers and users on an equal footing. This is the Scandinavian tradition of design of IT artifacts and it has been evolving since 1970.
- Participatory designParticipatory designParticipatory design is an approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders in the design process in order to help ensure the product designed meets their needs and is usable. The term is used in a variety of fields e.g...
(PD), a North American term for the same concept, inspired by Cooperative Design, focusing on the participation of users. Since 1990, there has been a bi-annual Participatory Design Conference. - Contextual designContextual designContextual Design is a user-centered design process developed by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt. It incorporates ethnographic methods for gathering data relevant to the product via field studies, rationalizing workflows, and designing human-computer interfaces...
, “customer-centered design” in the actual context, including some ideas from Participatory design
All these approaches follow the ISO standard Human-centred design for interactive systems (ISO 9241-210, 2010).
Purpose
UCD answers questions about usersEnd-user
Economics and commerce define an end user as the person who uses a product. The end user or consumer may differ from the person who purchases the product...
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:
- Who are the users of the document?
- What are the users’ tasks and goals?
- What are the users’ experienceExperienceExperience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event....
levels with the document, and documents like it? - What functions do the users need from the document?
- What informationInformationInformation in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
might the users need, and in what form do they need it? - How do users think the document should work?
Elements
As examples of UCD viewpoints, the essential elements of UCD of a web site are considerations of visibility, accessibility, legibility and language.Visibility
VisibilityVisibility
In meteorology, visibility is a measure of the distance at which an object or light can be clearly discerned. It is reported within surface weather observations and METAR code either in meters or statute miles, depending upon the country. Visibility affects all forms of traffic: roads, sailing...
helps the user construct a mental model
Mental model
A mental model is an explanation of someone's thought process about how something works in the real world. It is a representation of the surrounding world, the relationships between its various parts and a person's intuitive perception about his or her own acts and their consequences...
of the document. Models help the user predict the effect(s) of their actions while using the document. Important elements (such as those that aid navigation
Navigation
Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...
) should be emphatic. Users should be able to tell from a glance what they can and cannot do with the document.
Accessibility
Users should be able to find information quickly and easily throughout the document, regardless of its length. Users should be offered various ways to find information (such as navigational elements, search functions, table of contentsTable of contents
A table of contents, usually headed simply "Contents" and abbreviated informally as TOC, is a list of the parts of a book or document organized in the order in which the parts appear...
, clearly labeled sections, page numbers, color coding, etc). Navigational elements should be consistent with the genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
of the document. ‘Chunking
Chunking (psychology)
Chunking, in psychology, is a phenomenon whereby individuals group responses when performing a memory task. Tests where individuals can illustrate "chunking" commonly include serial and free recall, as these both require the individual to reproduce items that he or she had previously been...
’ is a useful strategy that involves breaking information into small pieces that can be organized into some type meaningful order or hierarchy
Hierarchy
A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another...
. The ability to skim
Skim
Skim or skimming may refer to:*Skimming , a process or technique of speed readingSkim or skimming may also refer to:-Sports and games:...
the document allows users to find their piece of information by scanning rather than reading. Bold and italic
Italic type
In typography, italic type is a cursive typeface based on a stylized form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, such typefaces often slant slightly to the right. Different glyph shapes from roman type are also usually used—another influence from calligraphy...
words are often used.
Legibility
Text should be easy to read: Through analysis of the rhetorical situation, the designer should be able to determine a useful fontFont
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
style. Ornamental fonts and text in all capital letters are hard to read, but italics and bolding can be helpful when used correctly. Large or small body text is also hard to read. (Screen size of 10-12 pixel sans serif and 12-16 pixel serif is recommended.)
High figure-ground contrast
Contrast (vision)
Contrast is the difference in visual properties that makes an object distinguishable from other objects and the background. In visual perception of the real world, contrast is determined by the difference in the color and brightness of the object and other objects within the same field of view...
between text and background increases legibility. Dark text against a light background is most legible.
Language
Depending on the rhetorical situation, certain types of languageLanguage
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
are needed. Short sentences are helpful, as well as short, well-written texts used in explanations and similar bulk-text situations. Unless the situation calls for it, do not use jargon
Jargon
Jargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, group, or event. The philosophe Condillac observed in 1782 that "Every science requires a special language because every science has its own ideas." As a rationalist member of the Enlightenment he...
or technical terms. Many writers will choose to use active voice
Active voice
Active voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. It is the unmarked voice for clauses featuring a transitive verb in nominative–accusative languages, including English and most other Indo-European languages....
, verbs (instead of noun strings
Noun phrase
In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
or nominals
Nominal (linguistics)
In linguistics, a nominal is a part of speech in some languages that shares features with nouns and adjectives.- Examples :Nominals are a common feature of Indigenous Australian languages, many of which do not categorically differentiate nouns from adjectives.Some features of nominals in some...
), and simple sentence structure.
Rhetorical situation
A user-centered design is focused around the rhetoricRhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
al situation. The rhetorical situation shapes the design of an information medium. There are three elements to consider in a rhetorical situation: Audience
Audience
An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature , theatre, music or academics in any medium...
, Purpose, and Context.
Audience
The audience is the people who will be using the document. The designer must consider their age, geographical location, ethnicity, gender, education, etc.Purpose
The purpose is what the document is targeting to or what problem is the document trying to address.Context
The context is the circumstances surrounding the situation. The context often answers the question: What situation has prompted the need for this document? Context also includes any social or cultural issues that may surround the situation.Analysis tools used in user-centered design
There are a couple of main tools that are used in the analysis of user centered design, mainly: persona, scenarios, and essential use cases.Persona
During the UCD process, a personaPersona
A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...
of the user's need may be created. It is a fictional character with all the characteristics of the user. Personas are created after the field research process, which typically consists of members of the primary stakeholder (user) group being observed on their behaviour, and additionaly answering questionnaires or participating in interviews, or a mixture of both. After results are gathered from the field research, they are used to create personas of the primary stakeholder group. Often, there may be several personas concerning the same group of individuals, since it is almost impossible to apply all the characteristics of the stakeholder group onto one character. The character depicts the a "typical" stakeholder, not an "average" individual in the primary stakeholder group, and is referred to throughout the entire design process. There are also what's called a secondary persona, where the character is not a member of the primary stakeholder group and is not the main target of the design, but their needs should be met and problems solved if possible. They exist to help account for further possible problems and difficulties that may occur even though the primary stakeholder group is satisfied with their solution. There is also an anti-persona, which is the character which the design process is not made for. Personas usually include a name and picture, demographics, roles and responsibilities, goals and tasks, motivations and needs, environment and context, and a quote that can represent the character's personality. Personas are useful in the sense that they create a common shared understanding of the user group for which the design process is built around. Also, they help to prioritize the design considerations by providing a context of what the user needs and what functions are simply nice to add and have. They can also provide a human face and existence to a diversified and scattered user group, and can also create some empathy and add emotions when referring to the users. However, since personas are a generalized perception of the primary stakeholder group from collected data, the characteristics may be too broad and typical, or too much of an "average joe". Sometimes, personas can have stereotypical properties also, which may hurt the entire design process. Overall, personas are a useful tool that can be used since designers in the design process can have an actual person to make design measure around other than referring to a set of data or a wide range of individuals.
Scenario
A scenarioScenario
A scenario is a synoptical collage of an event or series of actions and events. In the Commedia dell'arte it was an outline of entrances, exits, and action describing the plot of a play that was literally pinned to the back of the scenery...
created in the UCD process is a fictional story about the "daily life of" or a sequence of events with the primary stakeholder group as the main character. Typically, a persona that was created earlier is used as the main character of this story. The story should be specific of the events happening that relate to the problems of the primary stakeholder group, and normally the main research questions the design process is built upon. These may turn out to be a simple story about the daily life of an individual, but small details from the events should imply details about the users, and may include emotional or physical characteristics. There can be the "best case scenario", where everything works out best for the main character, the "worst case scenario", where the main character experiences everything going wrong around him or her, and an "average case scenario", which is the typical life of the individual, where nothing really special or really depressing occurs, and the day just moves on. Scenarios create a social context to which the personas exist in, and also create an actual physical world, instead of imagining a character with internal characteristics from gathered data an nothing else; there is more action involved in the persona's existence. A scenario is also more easily understood by people, since it is in the form of a story, and is easier to follow. Yet, like the personas, these scenarios are assumptions made by the researcher and designer, and is also created from a set of organized data. Some even say such scenarios are unrealistic to real life occurrences. Also, it is difficult to explain and inform low level tasks that occur, like the thought process of the persona before acting.
Use case
In short, a use caseUse case
In software engineering and systems engineering, a use case is a description of steps or actions between a user and a software system which leads the user towards something useful...
describes the interaction between an individual and the rest of the world. Each use case describes an event that may occur for a short period of time in real life, but may consist of intricate details and interactions between the actor and the world. It is represented as a series of simple steps for the character to achieve his or her goal, in the form of a cause-and effect scheme. Use cases are normally written in the form of a chart with two columns: first column labelled actor, second column labelled world, and the actions performed by each side written in order in the respective columns. The following is an example of a use case for performing a song on a guitar in front of an audience.
| Actor | World |
|---|---|
| choose music to play | |
| pick up guitar | |
| display sheet music | |
| perform each note on sheet music using guitar | |
| convey note to audience using sound | |
| audience provides feedback to performer | |
| assess performance and adjust as needed based on audience feedback | |
| complete song with required adjustments | |
| audience applause |
The interaction between actor and the world is an act that can be seen in everyday life, and we take them as granted and don't think too much about the small detail that needs to happen in order for an act like performing a piece of music to exist. It is similar to the fact that when speaking our mother tongue, we don't think too much about grammar and how to phrase words; they just come out since we are so used to saying them. The actions between an actor and the world, notably, the primary stakeholder (user) and the world in this case, should be thought about in detail, and hence use cases should are created to take these tiny interactions to occur.
An essential use case is a special kind of use case, also called an "abstract use case". Essential use cases describe the essence of the problem, and deals with the nature of the problem itself. While writing use cases, no assumptions about unrelated details should be made. In additions, the goals of the subject should be separated from the process and implementation to reach that particular goal. Below is an example of an essential use case with the same goal as the former example.
| Actor | World |
|---|---|
| choose sheet music to perform | |
| gathers necessary resources | |
| provides access to resources | |
| performs piece sequentially | |
| convey and interprets performance | |
| provides feedback | |
| completes performance |
Use cases are useful because they help identify useful levels of design work. They allow the designers to see the actual low level processes that are involved for a certain problem, which makes the problem easier to handle, since certain minor steps and details the user makes are exposed. The designers' job should take into consideration of these small problems in order to arrive at a final solution that works. Another way to say this is that use cases breaks a complicated task in to smaller bits, where these bits are useful units. Each bit completes a small task, which then builds up to the final bigger task. Like writing code on a computer, it is easier to write the basic smaller parts and make them work first, and then put them together to finish the larger more complicated code, instead to tackling the entire code from the very beginning. The first solution is less risky because if something goes wrong with the code, it is easier to look for the problem in the smaller bits, since the segment with the problem will be the one that does not work, while in the latter solution, the programmer may have to look through the entire code to search for a single error, which proves time consuming. The same reasoning goes for writing use cases in UCD. Lastly, use cases convey useful and important tasks where the designer can see which one are of higher importance than others. Some drawbacks of writing use cases include the fact that each actions, by the actor or the world, consist of little detail, and is simply a small action. This may possibly lead to further imagination and different interpretation of action from different designers. Also, during the process, it is really easy to over-simplify a task, since a small task from a larger task may consist of even smaller tasks. Picking up a guitar may involved thinking of which guitar to pick up, which pick to use, and think about where the guitar is located first. These tasks may then be divided into smaller tasks, such as first thinking of what colour of guitar fits the place to perform the piece, and other related details. Tasks may be split further down into even tinier tasks, and it is up to the designer to determine what is a suitable place to stop splitting up the tasks. Tasks may not only be oversimplified, they may also be omitted in whole, thus the designer should be aware of all the detail and all the key steps that are involved in an event or action when writing use cases.
User-centered design, needs and emotions
The book "The Design of Everyday ThingsThe Design of Everyday Things
The Design of Everyday Things is a best-selling book by cognitive scientist and usability engineer Donald Norman about the design of simple objects, and why some objects please their users while others frustrate them....
" (originally called "The Psychology of Everyday Things") was first published in 1986. In this book, Donald A. Norman
Donald Norman
Donald Arthur Norman is an academic in the field of cognitive science, design and usability engineering and a co-founder and consultant with the Nielsen Norman Group. He is the author of the book The Design of Everyday Things....
describes the psychology behind what he deems 'good' and 'bad' design through examples and offers principles of 'good' design. He exalts the importance of design in our everyday lives, and the consequences of errors caused by bad designs.
In his book, Norman uses the term "user-centered design" to describe design based on the needs of the user, leaving aside what he considers secondary issues like aesthetics. User-centered design involves simplifying the structure of tasks, making things visible, getting the mapping right, exploiting the powers of constraint, and designing for error. Norman's overly reductive approach in this text was readdressed by him later in his own publication "Emotional Design."
Other books in a similar vein include "Designing Pleasurable Products" by Patrick W. Jordan
Patrick W. Jordan
Patrick W. Jordan is a British/American writer, consultant and professional speaker. He advises many of the world’s leading companies on design, marketing and brand strategy and has also undertaken a variety of policy and strategy projects for the UK Government...
, in which the author suggests that different forms of pleasure should be included in a user-centered approach in addition to traditional definitions of usability.
User-centered design in product lifecycle management systems
Software applications (or often suites of applications) used in product lifecycle managementProduct lifecycle management
In industry, product lifecycle management is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its conception, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal...
(typically including CAD
Computer-aided design
Computer-aided design , also known as computer-aided design and drafting , is the use of computer technology for the process of design and design-documentation. Computer Aided Drafting describes the process of drafting with a computer...
, CAM
Computer-aided manufacturing
Computer-aided manufacturing is the use of computer software to control machine tools and related machinery in the manufacturing of workpieces. This is not the only definition for CAM, but it is the most common; CAM may also refer to the use of a computer to assist in all operations of a...
and CAx
CAx
Computer-aided technologies is a broad term that means the use of computer technology to aid in the design, analysis, and manufacture of products....
processes) can be typically characterized by the need for these solutions to serve the needs of a broad range of users, with each user having a particular job role and skill level. For example, a CAD digital mockup might be utilized by a a novice analyst, design engineer of moderate skills, or a manufacturing planner of advanced skills.
See also
- Empathic designEmpathic designEmpathic design is a user-centered design approach that pays attention to the user's feelings toward a product. The empathic design process is sometimes mistakenly referred to as Empathetic design.- Characteristics of empathic design :...
- ThanatosensitivityThanatosensitivityThanatosensitivity describes an epistemological-methodological approach into technological research and design that actively seeks to integrate the facts of mortality, dying, and death into traditional user-centred design...
- Contextual inquiryContextual inquiryContextual inquiry is a user-centered design ethnographic research method, part of the Contextual Design methodology. A contextual inquiry interview is usually structured as an approximately two-hour, one-on-one interaction in which the researcher watches the user do their normal activities and...
- Action researchAction researchAction research or participatory action research – is a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams or as part of a "community of practice" to improve the way they address issues and solve problems. Action research is done simply by action,...
- Interaction designInteraction designIn design, human–computer interaction, and software development, interaction design, often abbreviated IxD, is "the practice of designing interactive digital products, environments, systems, and services." Like many other design fields interaction design also has an interest in form but its main...
- UsabilityUsabilityUsability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object. The object of use can be a software application, website, book, tool, machine, process, or anything a human interacts with. A usability study may be conducted as a primary job function by a usability analyst or as a secondary job...
- Design ThinkingDesign thinkingDesign Thinking refers to the methods and processes for investigating ill-defined problems, acquiring information, analyzing knowledge, and positing solutions in the design and planning fields...
- User-design
- Needs analysisNeeds analysisNeeds analysis is the formal process defined by K Tara Smith that sits alongside Requirements analysis and focuses on the human elements of the requirements.-Introduction:...
- Human-centered computingHuman-centered computingHuman-centered computing is an emerging, interdisciplinary academic field broadly concerned with computing and computational artifacts as they relate to the human condition...
- Information architectureInformation ArchitectureInformation architecture is the art of expressing a model or concept of information used in activities that require explicit details of complex systems. Among these activities are library systems, Content Management Systems, web development, user interactions, database development, programming,...
- Paper prototyping
- Ubiquitous computingUbiquitous computingUbiquitous computing is a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities. In the course of ordinary activities, someone "using" ubiquitous computing engages many computational devices and systems...
- Participatory designParticipatory designParticipatory design is an approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders in the design process in order to help ensure the product designed meets their needs and is usable. The term is used in a variety of fields e.g...
- World Usability DayWorld Usability DayWorld Usability Day or Make Things Easier Day promotes the value of usability, usability engineering, user-centered design, universal usability, and every user's responsibility to ask for things that work better...
- Human-Centred Systems
- Component-Based Usability TestingComponent-Based Usability TestingComponent-based usability testing is a testing approach which aims at empirically testing the usability of an interaction component. The latter is defined as an elementary unit of an interactive system, on which behaviour-based evaluation is possible...
- Usability Engineering and E-Health
Further reading
- What is User-Centered Design? - Usability Professionals' Association
- The Fable of the User-Centred Designer, David Travis. An introduction to UCD principles through narrative.