Week 6 - User Centered Design

Hi, last week, we were taught about UCD, user centered design during the lecture. What is actually UCD? What is the purpose of learning it?

is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. - Wikipedia

Human Perception

 

Chunking ? 

- Elements of perception + memory (type of memorizing)

- Presentation of information is simplified by dividing it up

- Bite size for easy storage

- Forming chunks in working memory depends on how information is presented. 

Simplicity? 

- Designing for simplicity is a process of elimination

- Simplicity forces you to have a good reason for everything 

- In film it's called FORESHADOWING 

Simplicity is Not Simple !! 

 Visual Variables ?

- used for communication 

   - encoding data + drawing distinctions between visual elements

- 2 ways that visual variables work on perception

1. selectivity - different from the mess

2. Associativity - part of the mess

The Gestalt principles.

1. Proxitimity

2. Similarity

3. Continuity

4. Closure

5. Area

Gestalt Principle

6. Symmetry

Gestalt is a psychology term which means "unified whole". It refers to theories of visual perception developed by German psychologists in the 1920s. These theories attempt to describe how people tend to organize visual elements into groups or unified wholes when certain principles are applied. - http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm

So, again, what is UCD? 

UCD shifts focus from the designer of the application of the application/system/web site to the user of that application/system/website. 

Difficulties of UCD:

1. Good design not always satisfied customer.

2. Design is a colloboration between designers & customers

3. Design is evolves

4. If the input from the user is wrong,then the system will suffer.

Well, UCD (user centered design) is the kind of participatory design which involves the user to have a better way to solve the various problem the user faced.
As we all know, users are always the VIP or the 1st class members in the design process included both active and passive one.
The reason why involving the users in the design is because the users actually know best about the subject matter and the work content. This involves the iterative process. 
And the easiest way to involve the user is to TALK TO THEM. This is very important because we need to know about the users needs.

Thank you.