HumanCentered Design: Process Overview Challis Hodge July 17, 2003

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Human-Centered Design Process OverviewChallis
HodgeJuly 17, 2003
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Contents

• What Do Designers Do?
• What is Human-Centered Design?
• Why Human-Centered Design?
• Human-Centered Design Principles
• Human-Centered Design Process

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What do Designers Do?
Business
Customers
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Why Designers Are Important!
Gap!
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What is Human-Centered Design?

• A methodology that maximizes the likelihood that
  a product will meet a users wants and needs,
  behave the way they expect it to, and provide
  them with a quality user experience.
• Often referred to as User-Centered Design or UCD
• Assumes that all participants in the design
  process bring a personal bias to the process and
  that the actual end-users are the only
  participants who can come close to providing
  objective input. After all, they are the going to
  use the solution!

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The Brains Around the Table Rule
It isnt possible to sit around a conference
table and imagine correctly what people want
need.
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Why Human-Centered Design?

• Usable products are desirable products and that
  makes good business sense, especially in highly
  competitive markets.
• Quality user experiences business value! They
  increase sales and customer satisfaction while,
  enhancing product and company brands.
• Its often a lot more expensive, if not
  impossible, to make changes after a product is
  completed. Frank Lloyd Wright

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Why Human-Centered Design? (contd)
You can fix it on paper with an eraser, or you
can fix it on the construction site with a sledge
hammer. Frank Lloyd Wright
It can cost 10 times as much to correct user
interface problems in development than in design
and 100 times after product release.Source
Software Engineering A Practitioners Approach,
Usability Engineering, 1993
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Why Human-Centered Design? (contd)

• As designers we want our products to make it to
  and succeed in the marketplace. Designers
  typically care about people!
• Proper application of Human-Centered Design
  methodology will be invisible in the final design
  solution but its absence wont be!
• Deliver a quality user experience and a customer
  will tell three friendsdeliver a bad user
  experience and a customer will tell the whole
  world!

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Human-Centered Design Principles

• Understand the Problem  Determining the target
  market, intended users, and primary competition
  is central to all design and user participation.
  You have to know who youre designing for!
• Understand Users  A commitment to understand and
  involve the intended user is essential to the
  design process. If you want a user to understand
  your product, you must first understand the user!
• Assess Competition  Successful design requires
  ongoing awareness of the competition and its
  customers. Test your users tasks against the
  competition. You cant design successfully in
  isolation!

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Human-Centered Design Principles (contd)

• Design the Total User Experience  Everything a
  user sees and touches should be designed in
  concert by a multidisciplinary team.
• Evaluate Designs  User feedback is gathered
  early and often, using prototypes of widely
  ranging fidelity, and this feedback drives
  product design and development.
• Manage by Continual User Observation  Throughout
  the life of the product, continue to monitor and
  listen to your users, and let their feedback
  inform your responses to market changes and
  competitive activity.

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Human-Centered Design Process

• Market Definition Define the target audience,
  identify competitors, and determine the user
  needs.
• Task Analysis Identify and understand the users'
  goals and tasks, context of use, etc.
• Competitive Evaluation Determine the design
  strengths and weaknesses of the competition. 
• Concept Development Using the results from steps
  1, 2 3, create several concepts and choose a
  final direction based on user input.
• Iterative Design Periodically solicit user
  feedback on the evolving design, and iterate the
  design based on analysis of users testing.
• Benchmark Testing Test your solution (against
  the competition if appropriate) to verify that it
  meets objectives. Repeat 5 6.

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Example Process Insight-Driven Process
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Levels of Research and Understanding
Observing people within the context of their
daily lives yields deeper and more accurate
understanding of their goals, tasks, wants and
needs
I observed the user (what the user really wants
needs)
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Many Methods for Research Understanding
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The end of all thought must be action.
-Aldous Huxley