5/36 - User Centered Design
Design adds value faster than it adds costs
What is User-Centered Design?
User-centered design (UCD) is a collection of processes which focus on putting users at the center of product design and development. You develop your digital product taking into account your user’s requirements, objectives and feedback. A more formal definition is the one provided by the Interaction Design Foundation:
User-centered design (UCD) is an iterative design process in which designers and other stakeholders focus on the users and their needs in each phase of the design process. UCD calls for involving users throughout the design process via a variety of research and design techniques so as to create highly usable and accessible products for them.
— Definition of user-centered design (UCD) by the Interaction Design Foundation
History
In 1993 an Apple employee, known as Donald Norman, was the first person to integrate the phrase ‘user experience’ into his personally selected job title. He wanted to ensure that systems were designed to meet all aspects of the user’s experience.
Since then, many companies have begun adapting their design processes to include the principles of user-centered design (UCD).
Ultimately, UCD is a better way for businesses to serve their users by appealing to their needs and desires. The process includes extremely flexible principles that make it easy for any industry to use UCD when developing a killer product.
The Essential Elements of User-Centered Design
Visibility: Users should be able to see from the beginning what they can do with the product, what is it about, how they can use it.
Accessibility: Users should be able to find information easily and quickly. They should be offered various ways to find information for example call to action buttons, search option, menu, etc.
Legibility: Text should be easy to read. As simple as that.
Language: Short sentences are preferred here. The easier the phrase and the words, the better.
UCD and Design thinking go hand in hand
Let’s understand how design thinking plays an important role with UCD approaches.
User-centered design and design thinking are the most frequent methods used by businesses, governments, design agencies, and social channels. Simply because they are correlated to each other. Let's try to understand how these methods work together in product designing.Since both of the processes help to find solutions for users’ needs but user-centered design focuses on encouraging deep empathy with the users you are designing for and creating solutions with users’ needs and validation at the forefront of all designs. Whereas design thinking is more than product development where you take care of users’ needs but also figure out technological feasibility and business goals into consideration.
What makes them similar is their vision to achieve their respective goals. UCD as well as design thinking both have the ability to feel their users and understand their behaviors with empathy. The crux of the process is to empathize with your users and ultimately determine the outcome of your design. They view problems as opportunities for enhancement. Problem-solving is something that connects them as a process because, in the end, the main idea is to overcome all the hurdles. And the problem can be solved with an enthusiastic team them design method works best when a team of enthusiastic
Principles of User-Centered Design
The primary principles involved in UCD aim to ensure that usability is the main focus throughout the entire development process. These principles, if implemented correctly, will make sure that user experience is met not only upon initial release of a product but for the duration of its use.
To add, each of the principles below can be customized to meet each product’s unique requirements and interaction needs.
Create Designs Unique to User Needs When starting the design process, the design team needs to consider the specific characteristics of their targeted population as well as common real-world tasks. Additionally, the product should fit the environment where the product will be used the most. Formulating a product that requires a great amount of effort, on part of the user, diminishes its usability and functionality, and ultimately defeats the purpose of UCD.
Keeping It Consistent A major component of maintaining an optimal user experience is keeping the product consistent. Consistency determines how users will approach a product and influences the length of time it takes to learn how to use it.
The consistent mentality behind the UCD process should maintain constant from the beginning of the project to the end. In the event that the interface design needs updating, it is important to keep consistency among new features so that it remains valuable to the user.
Use Plain Language When developing a product, designers aim to convey the most readable dialogue to the user. This includes defining terminology, avoiding jargon and only displaying relevant information to the specific task. Presenting users with irrelevant information throughout the entire use of the product ultimately tarnishes its usability. Additionally, keeping the language simple allows the user to complete the task without becoming overwhelmed and confused.
Reduce User Effort Effective product design allows users to focus on the task at hand rather than the tool itself. Investing too much effort into the product makes them less efficient and more likely for errors to occur.
Instructions for the product should be readily available for the user to refer back to. This principle allows users to complete tasks without confusion and reduces the need for any unnecessary effort.
Provide Feedback Users rely on a response following all of their actions. This may include changing the screen’s appearance following the completion of an action. In the event that the task is not achieved right away, the product should display a loading screen to signal to the user that the task is in progress. Keeping the user up-to-date during the entire process reassures them and helps them stay on track with their work.
Simplify Navigation Navigation tools such as page numbers, scrolling bars, and history of visited pages greatly influence a user’s decision on a product. In general, the easier it is for them to navigate the product, the more satisfied they are with it. For this reason, designers always form a product with clear routes for users to take. The user should be able to navigate to their intended task even if they become sidetracked along the way.
Some examples that can help users redirect themselves include cancellation buttons or clear all options.
Give the User All the Power In the majority of cases, users already know what their needs are. They should be able to utilize a product with minor effort and rely on the support of the product to do the rest.
Eliminating the work from the task gives the user the power to complete it with ease while remaining in charge of their actions.
Present Clear Information Any information that the user receives should be necessary for the intended task. Including elements that are relevant to the product, but not a specific task, can bulk up the user’s screen and promote further confusion.
A few ways to organize relevant information include spaces or boxes. By segregating information into sections, the user can easily determine the different elements involved in the task.
Be Free of Errors Another principle of UCD focuses on minimizing the occurrence of errors. For example, products should be able to accept inputs that are very close to the user’s intended result. If the user submits a typo very similar to the correct response, the product should allow it. These modifications will differ depending on each product. If an error does occur, the product should always offer a solution to the problem so that it serves the user as best as possible.
Benefits of User-Centered Design
According to a 2018 study, 17% of information technology (IT) start-ups fail due to a lack of implementation of user-centered design. To add, other studies have deemed UCD to be responsible for roughly 30% of business owners’ success.
With these statistics in mind is it important to note the various areas in which UCD greatly benefits the outcome of a product’s success.
Increase sales: UCD is one such method where you can involve your potential user at every phase of the design process which helps you to give a better understanding of requirements and expectations. Once you achieve those requirements and fulfill expectations you will deliver a better product which ultimately results in more and more sales.
Reduce chances of human error: As the title suggests, when you involve your user in the iterative design process it will automatically help you reduce human error and allow you to create a trouble-free product.
Leads to more inclusive products: UCD helps you to leave all the biases out of the product and focus on all different types of users whether in terms of age, culture, occupations and so on.
Stronger sense of empathy: Because the design team is in closer contact with users, they develop not only a deeper understanding but also a stronger sense of empathy towards them.
User-centered design help UI/UX designers: You spend less time prototyping when you know what targeted users want from design. UCD helps designers to understand user’s pain points and bespoke requirements just by testing and measuring key demographics. Also, by getting instant feedback.
User-Centered Design Process
According to Userfocus , there are multiple principles that underlie user centered design. Design is based upon an explicit understanding of users, tasks, and environments; is driven and refined by user-centered evaluation; and addresses the whole user experience. The process involves users throughout the design and development process and it is iterative. And finally, the team includes multidisciplinary skills and perspectives.
The following are the general phases of the UCD process:
Specify the context of use: Identify the people who will use the product, what they will use it for, and under what conditions they will use it.
Specify requirements: Identify any business requirements or user goals that must be met for the product to be successful.
Create design solutions: This part of the process may be done in stages, building from a rough concept to a complete design.
Evaluate designs: Evaluation - ideally through usability testing with actual users - is as integral as quality testing is to good software development.
There are many variations of the UCD process. It can be incorporated into waterfall, agile, and other approaches. Depending on your needs, the user-centered design process is composed of several methods and tasks. What you are developing, your requirements, team, timeline, and the environment in which you are developing will all help determine the tasks you perform and the order in which you perform them.
Examples of Human-Centered Design
Spotify
Remember, we used to pay $1.99 for just one song or search for our favorite album and wait in line to purchase it.
Whenever someone mentions human-centered design, II’llalways say Spotify. Spotify changed the way the music industry worked, changed the way we perceive and consume music. It was something everyone needed for years without even realizing it.
Nowadays, there are many streaming services, so even those services have become common. However, I want to highlight the latest Spotify update and how the brand finally added song lyrics to the application.
The customers have been complaining about this for months, especially since Apple Music, SSpotify’sbiggest competition, had lyrics from the start. Spotify added lyrics and is still the best when it comes to personalized playlists, podcast recommendations, and its simple yet elegant UI.
Spotify succeeded by empathizing with their users’ struggle to pay for music from disparate sources and created a solution we could all embrace. Thanks to Spotify, users are able to get all their music in one place for one monthly fee. I’m willing to pay more for that kind of tailored, customized, helpful service.
Venmo
Another example of a product that solved a need before most people even noticed one is Venmo. I didn’t realize how inconvenient exchanging money was until Venmo came out with a solution.
Let me tell you the origin story of Venmo. The founders of Venmo, Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail, only came up with the idea for Venmo after they had run into an issue. One day, Iqram forgot his wallet on their journey to New York City. Andrew paid for everything in exchange Iqram wrote him a check at the end of the vacation.
And they couldn’t help but wonder why they still had to use this method to exchange money. Why couldn’t they do something simple like this on their mobile phones?
Thus, Venmo was born.
Now more than 50 million users use Venmo to transfer their money. Crazy right?