Processes and Methods for User-Centered Design (UCD)

Note: Recently, some prefer the term Human-Centered Design in order to consider all stakeholders. In either case, the goal is to meet the needs of people as opposed to designing the system around technological capabilities.

Principles for User-centered design (adapted from Gould and Lewis)

1. Early focus on users and tasks
2. Empirical measurement (and testing) of product usage
3. Iterative design

Some Properties of User-Centered Design (from McCracken and Wolfe text, p. 5)

• User-centered
• Interdisciplinary
• Iterative with testing

McCracken and Wolfe's UCD phases (pp. 5-9)

• Needs Analysis
• User and Task Analysis
• Functional Analysis
• Requirements Analysis
• Setting Usability Specifications
• Design
• Prototyping
• Evaluation

Rosson and Carroll (Usability Engineering, former text for HCI 440)

• Scenario-based design -- develop concrete stories to describe users and needs and motivate the design
• Explicitly list trade-offs when developing an interactive system
• Steps in the design process
  • Requirements analysis: create problem scenarios
  • Activity design
  • Information design
  • Interaction design
  • Prototyping
  • Evaluation

The software life cycle (presented in Human-Computer Interaction by Dix, Finley, Abowd and Beale

• Requirements specification
• Architectural design
• Detailed design
• Coding and unit testing
• Integration and testing
• Operation and maintenance

Hewlett Packard's Human Factors Activities (reported in Handbook of Usability Testing by Jeffrey Rubin)

1. Needs analysis
2. Requirements specification
3. Conceptual design
4. Prototype, development and test
5. Product evaluation

Discussion items:

• How do these processes correspond to each other? Are they consistent with each other? Are there any implied differences among the processes?
• How are these processes actually practiced?
• The following are titles for professional positions related to HCI. Assuming we can identify the responsibilities of each position, how can they be described in terms of activities for developing an interactive system?
  • Web developer
  • Graphic designer
  • Information architect
  • Usability engineer
  • Usability specialist
  • User interface engineer
  • User interface analyst
  • Usability test engineer
  • Director of User Experience
  • Web Accessibility Outreach Coordinator
  • Experience planner
• The following are disciplines that contribute to HCI. In what way do they contribute to activities in the development process?
  • Computer science
  • Psychology
  • Art and Graphic design
  • Psychology (and which areas?)
  • Anthropology
  • Linguistics
  • Engineering (software, ergonomics, human factors)
  • Philosophy