User-centered design

User-centered design is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of the end user of an interface or document 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 an interface, but 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 an interface 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 interface design philosophies is that user-centered design tries to optimize the user interface around how people can, want, or need to work, rather than forcing the users to change how they work to accommodate the system or function.

User Centered Design 

 

User-centered design (UCD) is a design approach that grounds the process in information about the people who will use the product. UCD processes focus on users through the planning, design and development of a product. It describes user centred design as a multi-disciplinary activity, which incorporates human factors knowledge and techniques with the objective of enhancing effectiveness and productivity eventually.

At Texnovate we follow an international standard that is the basis for many UCD methodologies. This standard (ISO 13407: Human-centred design process) defines a general process for including human-centered activities throughout a development life-cycle.

In this model, once the need to use a human centered design process has been identified, four activities form the main cycle of work:

1. Specify the context of use
   Identify the people who will use the product, what they will use it for, and under what conditions they will use it.
2. Specify requirements
   identify any business requirements or user goals that must be met for the product to be successful.
3. Create design solutions
   this part of the process may be done in stages, building from a rough concept to a complete design.
4. Evaluate designs
   The most important part of this process is that evaluation - ideally through usability testing with actual users - is as integral as quality testing is to good software development.

The Texnovate UCD Methodology
Our methodology involves iterating until the objectives are satisfied.
The sequence in which the following activities are performed and the level of effort and detail that is appropriate varies depending on the design environment and the stage of the design process.

Analysis Phase

• Meet with key stakeholders to set the product vision
• Include usability tasks in the project plan
• Assemble a multidisciplinary team to ensure complete expertise
• Develop usability goals and objectives
• Look at competitive products  (Product -feature research & product benchmarking)
• Create user profiles
• Develop a task analysis
• Document user scenarios
• Document user performance requirements

Design Phase

• Begin to brainstorm design concepts and metaphors
• Develop the information architecture
• Develop screen flow and navigation model
• Do walkthroughs of design concepts
• Visual Design
• Create low-fidelity prototypes
• Conduct usability testing on low-fidelity prototypes
• Create high-fidelity detailed design
• Do usability testing (1st level)
• Document standards and guidelines
• Create a design specification

Implementation Phase

• Continuous heuristic evaluations
• Work closely with delivery team as design is implemented
• Conduct usability testing (2nd Level)

Deployment Phase

• Use surveys to get user feedback
• Check objectives using usability testing