User-centred design: 4 principles, 1 objective

Introduction

If a system is difficult to use, people will resist using it, make more errors, and be more stressed. Keeping users at the centre of the design process is not only good practice, but key to the success of projects and the people responsible for them.

There are many interpretations of 'user-centred design', some over-complicated, or dependent on the type of project. The important thing is to have the key ideas, or principles, represented in a project.

Principles of user-centred design

 

1. Understand the user: Their processes; language; environment; constraints; systems; interactions, etc.

2. Design for the user: Make processes flow in ways the user thinks of them, with least effort, in language they understand, in simple, clutter-free designs, and within a navigation scheme that the user finds intuitive.

3. Test: Test early, test frequently, with real users, in their environment, using their equipment.

4. Iterative design: With a problem identified during testing, the obvious course of action is to rectify this problem, then test again. This process should continue as is practically possible within time and budget constraints.

Further, the development of the site or application should not stop when it goes live. The use of systems requires constant re-evaluation, as do the needs of the user.

Keep users at the centre of the design process

Are you user-centred? Ask those responsible for requirements gathering, design or programming, and they’ll say “but we already do that… sort of”, and they no doubt believe it.

But the truth is, no-one gets inside the head of the user unless they’re focused on it.

Those gathering requirements are too close to high level objectives, and programmers have a fundamentally different view of the world.

It’s a dedicated job: When push comes to shove during requirements gathering, getting the document out becomes the main objective. Likewise, towards the end of a late project, testing is often shelved without too much objection.

Simply having someone dedicated to ‘user-centred design’ ensures increased focus on it.