Week 6: User-centered design (UCD)

User-centered design also knows as UCD can be defined as a design idea/philosophy and a process that include the end user in every stage of the design process. In UCD, the focus is shift from the designer to the end user. It is a participating design process where it required the user itself to involve in the design process. The designer need to interact with the user in the design process. In my personal view, this design process is useful where people that understand the most of the product and needed should be the user itself.

User can involve in the process in several ways. Some of them are:

-Contextual interview

-Prototyping (an early sample/beta version of the end product)

-Direct observation (face on face observation)

-Indirect observation (example: observation the user in another room via cctv or camera)

-Study Documentation

-Focus group

Even through this design process is an interesting process. But there are difficulties happen in this process. There are:

-Misunderstanding between the user and the designer.

-The interviews may not clear and precise.

-Unconscious about what problem will occur in the future.

- Wrong input from user suffers the whole system.

-User do not required certain needed design knowledge

To solve these kind of problem and make the process smooth:

-Designer need to have a good communication with the user

-Improve the interview to increase the preciseness.

- Revise all the design stages.

Overall, UCD is a good design process where users are the one know best about what they need. This can increase the collaboration between the user and the designer hence causes the design to evolve.

Source of information:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-centered_design