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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User-Centred Design (UCD): 6 Methods
Learn all about user-centered design, the methods available to you, and how and when they should be employed.
Fidgeon, Tim. Webcredible (2005). Design>User Centered Design>Accessibility>Usability
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User-Centred Design: Tried and Tested Flavour of the Month
User centred design is an approach that helps all members of a development team balance the needs of customers with the commercial objectives of the product. Properly executed, it guarantees commercial success for a product because customers are involved at every phase of the development. It also ensures business objectives are met and stops products from being over-engineered.
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User-Driven Documentation: From Usability Testing to User Guide 
Rockwell Software is a $90-million company specializing in plant automation software. Offices in West Allis, Wisconsin, and Mayfield Village, Ohio allow technical communicators to work closely with development teams to design, test, and release usable, consistent software and information products. While Rockwell Software’s information development process is a multi-faceted endeavor, this paper focuses on the following three steps we implement to create our information products: interviewing customers to establish information guidelines, conducting usability tests, and writing Getting Results guides.
Butler, Scott A., Jennifer L. Giordano and Myron M. Shawala III. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Usability
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Users In The Development Cycle: Effective Project Communication
Don't be another project manager who thinks end users have no place in the development cycle. Get the right information from the right people and make sure your team has everything they need to do their jobs properly. When your application is loved by all and you're responsible for its success, your entire team will thank you for it.
Palmisano, Salvatore. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>User Centered Design>Workflow
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Users Interleave Sites and Genres
When working on business problems, users flitter among sites, alternating visits to different service genres. No single website defines the user experience on its own.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability
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User role models are compared in detail with the popular user modeling technique of personas. User roles offer a more compact, more focused means of capturing and exploring those aspects of users most relevant to interaction design. The advantages and limitations of the approaches are considered and a combined strategy is described.
Constantine, Larry L. Constantine and Lockwood (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas
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Once you've got a statement of purpose you're halfway to being ready to design. The next step is to understand who'll be looking at the page, and why.
Hunt, Ben. Web Design From Scratch (2005). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability
#31995
Using Calculators for User Engagement
Calculators can play important roles on websites. They are especially popular for financial sites, where they can help users calculate mortgage payments, retirement needs, interest earned, and so on. They also appear on other sites, where users can calculate things as varied as their BMI (body mass index), carbon footprint, life expectancy, or gas mileage.
Zhou, Yun and Cliff Anderson. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Usability>Assessment>User Centered Design
#24572
Using Customer Data to Drive Documentation Design Decisions 
This article shows how user-centered design can be applied to documentation and reports the results of a two-year contextual design study. The article (1) demonstrates how contextualdesign can be applied to information and (2) reports some of the study's results,outlining key insights gleaned about users. The study found that users vary widely intheir information needs and preferences. Users employ a variety of learning strategies inlearning new software and in overcoming problems encountered within applications.Documentation can better meet variances in learning styles and user preferences whentightly integrated into applications, accessible in the user's own language. Additionally,documentation is most beneficial when several assistance options exist for users tochoose among, varying according to context, task, and user need. Finally, the article discussesthe constraints that affect the implementation of design ideas and explores implicationsfor practice and additional research.
Smart, Karl L. and Matthew E. Whiting. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2002). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design
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Using Customer Inquiries as a Basis for Revising and Editing User Manuals
The Documentation Development Department (DDD) of Hitachi has been improving manuals by collecting, classifying, and analyzing inquiries from its customers to the Hitachi Customer Answer (HCA) Center. The HCA Center is a telephone inquiry center established to give quick and clear answers to inquiries from customers who use Hitachi computers.
Masuda, Tadashi. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design
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Using Usability “Use Cases” in Documentation Planning
This workshop presents an introduction to use cases - a planning tool which can be used for capturing a future documentation system's functional requirements as well as the overall information requirements of end users. You learn what a use case is and what recommended guidelines there are for creating use cases. You also learn how use cases are applied in the documentation development process as a whole.
Nurminen, Mary and Leena M. Rasinaho. STC Proceedings (1997). Presentations>Documentation>User Centered Design
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A use case is a story written about a product which is only in the planning stages. It answers the question: 'How is this wonderful product I'm planning to make going to be used in real life?' Use cases have been used as a tool in software planning for about 15 years.
Karppinen, Anne and Mary Nurminen. STC Proceedings (2003). Design>User Centered Design>Methods
#23189
L'Utilisateur Moyen N'existe Pas
La conception d'un site est trop souvent ponctuée de ces réunions stériles où chacun cherche à défendre son point de vue persuadé de plaider la cause de l'utilisateur final. Mais il n'existe pas d'utilisateur moyen. Chaque utilisateur est unique. L'approche ergonomique permet d'adapter le site à l'usage qui en est réellement fait et ainsi de construire sur des bases objectives.
Nogier, Jean-Francois. Usabilis (2004). (French) Design>Web Design>Collaboration>User Centered Design
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I recently made a career transition from technical writing to usability engineering. In my new position, I have been conducting site visits with customers in the area. During a recent visit, I found an opportunity to query a user, 'Mike,' about using online Help. Join Molly on her first experience watching a user try to work with documentation, an experience both illuminating and alarming.
Malsam, Molly. Usability Interface (2007). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design
#30879
Web Analytics: Insights From the Front Line, Part 1
In many companies Web and Web analytics have been a silo that someone else is taking care of. Web sites are becoming the most important customer touch point and the most important revenue generator, even for businesses that are not first of mind.
Mazon, Neil. ClickZ (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Log Analysis
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Web Analytics: The Voice of Users in Information Architecture Projects
How to use web analytics in designing web information architecture.
Hurol Inan (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Log Analysis
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When users visit your web site, their immediate impression of its credibility is based on appearance, colors, text fonts. Then, as they explore your site, other factors contribute to its credibility impact. Lose users here, and they probably will never return.
Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Interaction Design
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Web Interactivity: Connecting People and Knowledge
We humans are wired to seek interaction with other people. Complex language and reasoning powers support your interactive nature. Your brain can retrieve and store unlimited amounts of information from everyday interactions and use that information to think, analyze, and solve complex problems.
Girolami, Frank. Between the Lines (2007). Articles>Web Design>Interaction Design>User Centered Design
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Widely utilized in the West to make environments more beneficial to occupants, the ancient Chinese practice of feng shui aligns the forces of chi (energy) to create balance, harmony, and prosperity. I've adapted a sort of feng shui for Web sites.
Deaton, Mary M. Builder.com (2003). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design
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Web Shui: Working the Guidelines
Design conventions represent the dominant and successful methods of Web site planning and creation and give you a clear set of dos and don'ts for your own site.
Deaton, Mary M. CNET Builder.com (2003). Articles>User Centered Design>Web Design
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This article looks at web design issues from a technical writing perspective. It highlights aspects of poor design that can prevent your intended audience from receiving your message.
Unwalla, Mike. TechScribe (2003). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design
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Taking the time to plan a Web site is crucial for the success of the project.
Leonard-Wilkinson, Theresa A. W-edge Design (1998). Design>Web Design>Information Design>User Centered Design
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Web-User Satisfaction on the Upswing
Site visitors are more likely to finish Web tasks successfully, but site searches are still troublesome, according to a recent survey.
O'Reilly, Dennis. PC World (2004). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability
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The Web Category Analysis Tool (WebCAT) is a variation on traditional card sorting techniques that allows a web designer/usability engineer to test a proposed or existing categorization scheme of a website to determine how well the categories and items are understood by users.
NIST. Articles>User Centered Design>Information Design>Card Sorting
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Weblogs Enable User-Centric Sites
Weblogs give users information from multiple sources in one page.
Bohmann, Kristoffer. Bohmann Usability (2000). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Blogging
