User-centered design is a philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of the end user of an interface or document are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. It is often seen as an offshoot of the usability movement, and a progenitor of the experience design and interaction design movements.
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On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Centered Design
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How Many Items Should Go in a Menu?
A lot of people think 7 ± 2 (i.e., between 5 and 9, with a preference for 7). NO! It isn’t! And here I will explain why.
Salmoni, Alan James. Milui (2005). Articles>User Interface>User Centered Design
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How Technical Communicators Can Apply User-Centered Design to Their Work
The user-centered design process applies to designing a piece of technical communication as well as designing a product. Placing the user at the center of the design and development process for information ensures that a usable piece of communication will be delivered to the customer. Technical communicators can apply each of the user-centered design (UCD) tasks to their own writing process and information development cycle.
Fisher, Lori H. Usability Interface (2000). Design>User Centered Design>TC
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How To Avoid Foolish Consistency
People don't like to learn things. If they take the time to learn something, they expect to be able to apply that knowledge in many places. It follows that good designers conserve the number of things users need to learn to get stuff done. The streets in American cities are good examples of conservation of knowledge. Anywhere in America, yield and stop signs look exactly the same. Traffic lights use red, yellow, and green to mean precisely the same things regardless of the street or city. Mailboxes on street corners use the same colors and icons, so they are clearly identifiable anywhere. It becomes difficult for people when their knowledge of things breaks down. A driver from a country with different street signs who visits America will make mistakes until they learn the new signs. Even subtle variances like the difference in speed of two different yellow traffic lights can cause American drivers to make mistakes.
Berkun, Scott. UIWeb (1999). Design>User Interface>User Centered Design
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How to Create and Promote a Blog in Eight Easy Steps
A new buzzword you should know about is 'blog' or 'web log', meaning web log, digital journal, or online diary. Blogs are the Next Big Thing to hit the Internet, after conventional Web Sites.
Streight, Steven. Usability Interface (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Blogging
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How to Create User-Centered Documentation, Interview with Joe Sokohl
In this podcast, Joe Sokohl explains how to create user-centered documentation by contacting, observing, and interviewing users to gather information about what types of information they use and the help deliverables they actually want.
Sokohl, Joe and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Interviews>Documentation>User Centered Design
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How to Embed Usability and UCD Internally
Integrating usability into any organisation can be a difficult and isolating experience. Get the lowdown on how to achieve this within your organisation.
Ismail, Ismail. Webcredible (2007). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design
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How to Make URLs User-Friendly
One of the worst elements of the web from a user interface standpoint is the URL. However, if they're short, logical, and self-correcting, URLs can be acceptably usable.
Baker, Adam. Merges.net (2001). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability
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How to Stop Writing Documentation and Start Working for Your Users 
How do you stop writing documentation and instead give people the information they need to use a product? You start by understanding your users: their level of expertise, the tasks they need to accomplish, and the problems they are likely to run into. Then you can help them do their work by presenting the information from their point of view and focusing on real tasks, rather than product functions. With this background, you can develop information that is easy to understand, easy to find, and visually effective.
Bergen, Karen A. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design
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HTML Wireframes and Prototypes: All Gain and No Pain
Mention the use of HTML for wireframing or prototyping, and some information architects and interaction designers frantically look for the nearest exit. In some circles, HTML has acquired the reputation of being a time-consuming, difficult undertaking best left to developers. This is very far from the truth.
Stanford, Julie. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Web Design>Methods>User Centered Design
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The phrase 'human error' is taken to mean 'operator error', but more often than not the disaster is inherent in the design or installation of the human interface. Bad interfaces are slow or error prone to use. Bad interfaces cost money and cost lives.
Dix, Alan. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>Usability>User Centered Design
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I Know What You Need to Know: Is that User Centered Documentation?
Quality management is forcing technical communicators to meet the challenge of writing user-centered documentation. Adequate preparatory work would be to categorize potential users according to experience, knowledge, tasks to be performed, and other use-relevant features. Users' requirements and requests should then be incorporated into the document's design.
Bock, Gabriele. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design
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iaslash is a news site for information architects, modeled on slashdot, interested in information organization, usability, user testing, user interface design, and other areas related to the access and use of information in information-use environments.
iaslash. Resources>Information Design>User Centered Design>Blogs
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IBM Ease of Use Web Design Guidelines 
The IBM Ease of Use Group's guidelines for following a user-centered design process and creating easy-to-use Web interfaces. The information is valuable for a range of designers from novices to the more experienced and covers such topics as planning, design, production, and maintenance.
IBM (2001). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design
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IBM User-Centered Design for the Documentation Designer
The user-centered design of documentation is an aspect of product design that has often been under-emphasized. Difficulties inherent in documentation design include obtaining user, feedback to high-level design objectives; extracting user. feedback specific to a product’s documentation. rather than to the product as a whole; and managing the various resource constraints inherent in product development. IBM User-Centered Design offers a solution to these difficulties by employing a set of user feedback methodologies from which the documentation designer, a member of a multidisciplinary design team, extracts pertinent data to set design objectives and follow through to low-level designs.
Righi, Carol and Lynn VanDyke. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>User Centered Design>Documentation>Technical Writing
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Ideas on Cooperation Between Suppliers and Users Regarding Documentation
Documentation, operators’ manuals, maintenance instructions, etc, can never be perfect and satisfy all users. The organization of the documentation, particularly for large systems, will never suit all users and there will always be some errors present. This means the supplier and the user need to cooperate in various ways to avoid the fatal consequences of errors and misinterpretations, and for the improvement of documentation over time.
Rullgård, Åke. TC-FORUM (2001). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design
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Tom Kelly's latest book 'The 10 Faces of Innovation' internal personas are used to help illustrate traits critical in building an innovation culture.The Experience Archtect is included.
Armano, David. uiGarden (2007). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Personas
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IDII: A Life Changing Experience
Almost two years ago, twenty students from all over the world came to Ivrea, a city that once was the epicenter of Olivetti and of the Italian Hi-tech. They came to study interaction design.
Kikin-Gil, Erez and Ruth Kikin-Gil. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Education>User Centered Design>Italy
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Immersibility: What the World Needs Now?
'Immersibility' is a concept that takes a holistic approach to the quality of the Web user experience. The concept is discussed on www.immersibility.com. The site results from work by agency.com, the Nielsen Norman Group and Gomoll Research & Design. The site also offers a tool called 'the immersibility index' intended to measure, in a holistic manner, the quality of the Web user experience.
Zukor, Lee. Usability Professionals Association (2001). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design
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User experience is a term that is widely used these days to refer to all sorts of interactions between people and technologies. But when it comes to videogames, experience is the only sensible word to use. Games are pure experience. And the range of experiences they offer is huge from what it is like to land a 747 at Heathrow Airport to slaying space dragons with a team of like-minded warriors. Thus, when it comes to really understanding user experience in games, it can be hard to say anything that would apply in general. However, one expression that does seem to crop up regularly, and that gamers relate to, is that games are immersive: when people are having a good experience, they get lost or immersed in the game and the world outside the game fades into the background. So what is this notion of immersion? What causes it? And is it the heart of what makes a good game? These are the questions that I have been trying to answer, together with my colleagues and students, over the last few years.
Cairns, Paul. uiGarden (2008). Articles>User Experience>User Centered Design>Games
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Web sites and software often compete with each other based on the features they provide. The popular assumption is that the more features a product has, the better it will be. The truth is that features improve a product only if they are actually used by the customer. In most cases the proliferation of features in products creates more complexity than value. Each feature gets an icon or a link on a Web site or toolbar, and is yet another item that the user needs to wade through before they can find the one that they need. Web sites are still young, but many Mac and Microsoft® Windows applications show the carnage of years of feature wars with competing products. Over the years I've learned a few things about how to keep interfaces simple, and simultaneously keep the power intact for more sophisticated users.
Berkun, Scott. UIWeb (1999). Design>Usability>User Centered Design
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La Imposibilidad de la Belleza: Reflexiones Sobre la Lógica de la Distinción en la Posmodernidad
Queremos decir: el campo del diseño está muy lejos de erigirse como un lenguaje transgresor mientras continúe definiendo como único legítimo el modo de percepción que establece cierta disposición y cierta competencia. En otras palabras, mientras no se sincere un juicio que, de manera consciente o inconsciente, tiene por principio de intención la ruptura con el rechazo a lo ordinario, lo genérico, lo fácil e inmediatamente accesible, será imposible crear formas estéticas alternativas.
Almeida, Marta y Vazquez and Laura Vanesa. University of Alberta (2003). (Spanish) Design>User Centered Design>Community Building
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Improving Document Quality Through Customer Visits
In an effort to improve the quality of our documentation, our Information Development department personally visited over 80 of our customers in 10 different locations across the United States. Our goal was to find out what we needed to do to create documentation that would satisfy our customers' needs. We came up with a process for planning our visits, gathering the information from our customers, implementing their requirements, and increasing communication with them. From the visits, we not only made changes that immediately satisfied our customers, but we created an environment for them to work with us as a team.
Lass, Laura W. and Wendy L. Reed. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Quality>User Centered Design
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Improving Documentation Through Customer Feedback: A Case Study
By soliciting and receiving customer feedback, writers learn how customers use existing documentation and what additional information customers may need. In May 2001, we began a formal process of gathering customer feedback for the IBM WebSphere Commerce Suite product. The first phase of this process involved two main initiatives: creating and promoting a documentation questionnaire for customers; creating and working with an internal test team that acted as customers. Feedback allowed us to determine which information strategies helped customers meet their business needs, and which areas we need to concentrate on in future releases.
Heximer, Erin and Lisa Wu. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design
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Increasing User Acceptance Of Technical Information in Cross-Cultural Communication 
A significant problem in technical communication is persuading the user that the information is accurate, valid, and useful. All too often, technical communicators treat users as members of their own culture. When authors do consider cultural issues, they often focus on matters such as vocabulary, visuals, and organization. Other strategies, however, can be useful in gaining acceptance of technical information in cross-cultural situations. For example, the communication theory of compliance-gaining offers suggestions for how the technical communicators can adapt the text to enhance user acceptance when communicating to members of their own culture as well as when communicating across cultures. Communicators can use promises, threats, demonstrate positive and negative outcomes, extend friendliness, etc., to develop the text. In this article, I will explain several compliance-gaining strategies authors can use, identify rhetorical strategies they can combine with compliance-gaining strategies, show how these strategies can be effective in a cross-cultural environment by comparing the strategies in two sample cultures, and analyze a brief sample.
Warren, Thomas L. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2004). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>International
