UserCentredDesign

=**User Centred Design (UCD)**= toc

Definition
User Centred Design is a way to approach a design by processing the information about the people that will end up using the product. UCD is used throughout the planning, design and implementation phases and is used to improve the user experience.

“Key to establishing user-centred design is the __internal attitude and culture of an organization*__. In fact a successful move towards user-centred design should be based on a detailed understanding of current attitudes, skills, abilities, and practices within an organization.”[[|5]]

//*By culture it means something __psychological__ about the group, like their behaviour, values, for example, are they comfortable in filling up personal information online, or they prefer having it printed out, so may be a printing function is preferred over the online form filling device. [|context of use]//

User-centred Design is an approach to design which the whole process of planning, and designing is built around the targeted users. With UCD approach, it pays close attention to the user's experience in both the real and web space. Their familiarity to those spaces becomes the main guild to the Usability of the interface you created.

Process
The typical UCD process includes:
 * Determine goals and objectives
 * Creating user profiles
 * Documenting user scenarios
 * Field studies
 * Documenting user requirements
 * Creating prototypes
 * Usability tests
 * Heuristic evaluations
 * Conducting surveys for user feedback

Method
There's varies method of doing UCD, as listed above. This is a table of the UCD method, generally show the process of doing UCD from planning, researching, designing, testing, to releasing. There's that constant revising based on how user operates in that space you created.



//Please go to the link below or click on the image because you can click on each of the component and learn more about it.//http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/methods.htm [[|4]]

Usability testing
__Testing__ is the big part of UCD because it can actually tell how “usable” your space is and testing needs some kind of rubric (testing requirements) or may be a target that you wish to achieve in order to evaluate how user-friendly your space is. [[|7]]

//An example for setting a target for testing would be:// //I want 70% of the user to find out the latest news within 2 days of posting.// //or// //I want 80% of user to complete this form without error.//

[|Usability tests] are ongoing throughout the process as these are key to developing a system that is suitable for the end-user. The tests will involve the end-user to evaluate how appropriate the product is, and to make improvements. UCD can help enhance the user experience by simplifying the tasks, creating understandable mapping and simply creating a system that can be easily navigated by the end-user.

//There is an// [|example] [[|6]]//of a report on usability testing of an actual company//

User-based research
This is an opposite approach of “top-down” design approach which the designer based his/her own interpretation as the centre point, the risk it is taking is that the interface/space may only speak to the designer or very narrow group of people who share a very similar context/practice. But with UCD, __research and analysis on the target audience__ is the key thing to do while designing, such practices can help designer to know the “common vision” [[|4]] of the group such as:

[[|4]]
 * their expectation
 * their reason to view that space
 * their knowledge about that specific topic
 * their past experience/familiarity of the technology, space you created,
 * their background

To Summarize, UCD is trying to figure out the “common language” or “__context of use__”[[|8]] of the user and try to make use of those to enhance their user experience and so to stimulate interactions with the space. Therefore, it is less subjective [[|5]] than top-down design approach which also means more accessible to all.

References:

 * 1) "What is User-Centred Design." Resources: About Usability. Usability Professionals' Association. 3 Oct 2007 <[|http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/about_usability/what_is_ucd.htm]>.
 * 2) "User Centred Design." Wikipedia. 3 Oct 2007 <[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Centred_Design]>.
 * 3) Black, Alison. "User Centred Design." 14 Nov 2006. Design Council. 4 Oct 2007 <[|http://www.design-council.org.uk/en/About-Design/Design-Techniques/User-centred-design-/]>.
 * 4) "Getting started". UsabilityNet. Retrieved on Oct5, 2007 from .
 * 5) Philip,Ross and Chris Rourke. "Beyond usability testing: user-centred design and organisational maturity". Retrieved on Oct 5, 2007 from 
 * 6) Davidson,C. "Common Industry Format for Usability Test Report v1.1". SuperSoftware,Inc. Retrieved on Oct5, 2007 from .
 * 7) "Performance testing". UsabilityNet. Retrieved on Oct5,2007 from .
 * 8) "Analyse context of use". UsabilityNet. Retrieved on Oct5, 2007 from .