UCD: USER CENTERED DESIGN

Good design is much more than that which meets the eye.

Behind the apparent and the obvious, behind the so called “as it is” and the “transparent”, lies the raison deter of the whole phenomena of a Good Design, a design that works, a design that appeals and is also aesthetic.

The visual part of a design – the look and feel – is only the tip of the iceberg.

MEANING:

User Centred Design is a design philosophy where the end users’ needs, wants and limitations are a focus at all stages within the design process and development life cycle.

The result of this is a high level of usability: the design is effective, efficient, engaging and easy to learn.

ESSENCE : Products developed using the UCD methodology are optimized for end-users and emphasis is placed on how the end-users need or want to use a product instead of forcing the end user to change his behaviour to use the product.

WHY UCD?

Traditional Techniques do not explore in depth those feelings, dreams and concerns of the users, so consumer research is done.

Three tier process:

1. What Users describe.
2. What Engineers create .
3. What Customers really need .

To bridge this gap, companies must find new ways to differentiate their product from a competitor’s invention and commit their customers. Furthermore, the awareness of people’s experiences and the increasingly multicultural market has imposed new demands on design.

2 levels of knowledge what people: say and do!

What people say can be known via Questionnaire, Polls and Interviews- Different ways of getting answers from people.

(They may report events that occurred before, reasons, opinions, voice needs)

But the hard dilemma is – What people say is not what they do!!

So the question is: Do techniques come to ensure what users are really doing?

But what users do is what actually they know, feel or dream.

So the designing has to be much user centric.

The International Usability Standard ISO 13407 specifies the principles and activities that underlie user centred design:

1. The design is based upon an explicit understanding of users, tasks and environments.
2. Users are involved throughout design and development.
3. The design is driven and refined by user-centred evaluation.
4. The process is iterative.
5. The design addresses the whole user experience.
6. The design team includes multidisciplinary skills and perspectives.

IMPORTANT POINTS TO CONSIDER IN UCD:

• What the product is.
• How big the project is, both in workload and cost investment.
• Whether the project is a new design or a re-build.
• Whether you’re using off-the-shelf components or building from scratch
• Your ability to influence the project brief or the choices used for the solution.
• What skills or experience you or your team are most lacking
• How much time you have before interface design needs to start
• How well you know the users and business, and their respective needs
• What your design and development process is

The central premise of user centred design is that the best designed products and services result from understanding the needs of the people who will use them.

User Centred Design Follows the underlying stages:

The user centred design process is an iterative cycle where every step is evaluated against the initially identified requirements of the users and iterated until these requirements are met.

To know more visit us at https://magnigeeks.com/ucd-user-centered-design/ .