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.
#33008
Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful
Human-Centered Design has become such a dominant theme in design that it is now accepted by interface and application designers automatically, without thought, let alone criticism. That’s a dangerous state – when things are treated as accepted wisdom. The purpose of this essay is to provoke thought, discussion, and reconsideration of some of the fundamental principles of Human-Centered Design. These principles, I suggest, can be helpful, misleading, or wrong. At times, they might even be harmful. Activity-Centered Design is superior.
Norman, Donald A. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Centered Design>Activity Theory
#33009
在设计界，以人为中心的设计已经成为一个占统治地位的主题，以至于它经常被界面和应用设计人员不加思考地加以采用，更不要说是用一种带有批判的眼光加以采用。这是一种危险的状态――当某些事情被当作是被广泛认可的知识来对待时。这篇文章的目的就是要引起人们对于以人为中心设计方法的基本原理的重新思考和讨论。我认为，这些原理可能是有益的，有误导性的，或是是错误的。有时候，它们甚至可能是有害的。以活动为中心的设计是更好的一种方法。
Norman, Donald A. uiGarden (2005). (Chinese) Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Centered Design>Activity Theory
#33010
HCD has developed as a limited view of design. Instead of looking at a person’s entire activity, it has primarily focused upon page-by-page analysis, screen-by-screen. As a result, sequences, interruptions, ill-defined goals – all the aspects of real activities, have been ignored. And error messages – there should not be any error messages. All messages should contain explanations and offer alternative ways of proceeding from the message itself.
Norman, Donald A. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Centered Design
#33013
The key revolution of the Web is customer empowerment and engagement. The Web empowers the customer more than it empowers the organization. The implications are enormous.
McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>User Experience
#33015
Accessibility in User-Centered Design: Personas
Personas are "hypothetical archetypes" of actual users. They are not real people, but they represent real people during the design process. A persona is a fictional characterization of a user. The purpose of personas is to make the users seem more real, to help designers keep realistic ideas of users throughout the design process.
UIaccess (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Personas
#33016
Generally, user group profiles are not developed for all user groups, rather they are developed for the primary user groups and for user groups that designers don't know well. Because many designers start out with little or no knowledge of accessibility issues, adding accessibility considerations to user group profiles is particularly important.
UIaccess (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Personas
#33017
Bringing Your Personas to Life in Real Life
The way you communicate personas and present your deliverables is key to ensuring consistency of vision. Without that consistency, you’ll spend far too much time arguing with your colleagues about who your users are rather than how to meet their needs. Let’s start with a review of what we know about personas, and why they are useful.
Freydenson, Elan. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>User Centered Design>Personas
#33042
很多人难以理解我的那篇“以人为中心的设计是有害的”文章。 （哈哈，下面这样说可能有些保守！关于这个问题，肯定有五百篇评论和博客文章。） 特别地，我没能够清楚地说明“以活动为中心的设计”是什么意思，以及它和“以人为中心的设计”是如何的不同。 一些人好像认为我彻底抛弃了我以前说过的话。另外一些人则简单地认为我疯了。还有一些人则急匆匆地出来解释我那样说的含义。
Norman, Donald A. uiGarden (2006). (Chinese) Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Centered Design
#33056
From Producer Logic to User Logic: The Greatest Challenge You May Have
Moving an intranet structure from a producer logic to a user logic is probably the hardest thing an intranet manager will ever have to do, especially in large, complex organisations.
NetStrategy-JMC (2007). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>User Centered Design
#33059
Human-Centered Intranet Design
The role of the developer is to ensure that their systems don't put undue stress on users simply for the sake of technology. Developing for technology alone helps no one. It may showcase the advances in the industry and impress those in-the-know; but after the oohing and aahing stop, it does little to ease the disconnect between the user and the tool.
Chin, Paul. Intranet Journal (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>User Centered Design
#33084
You can’t usefully deliver information to users that you haven’t personally met. This article discusses the challenges in delivering information to all staff within an organisation, and outlining practical approaches that ensure efforts spent publishing intranet content are not wasted.
Robertson, James. Step Two (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>User Centered Design
#33105
Top Ten Ways to Lose Your Intranet Users
Intranet developers and content owners are able to grab the attention of their users through momentum. Interest--caused by curiosity, marketing, word-of-mouth, or hype--is raised during initial rollout. And there will always be a surge in your web server's usage logs during this period. But once the novelty has worn off, will your intranet have enough true substance to transform that initial momentum into regular usage?
Chin, Paul. Intranet Journal (2004). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>User Centered Design
#33110
Why are Intranets Structured Like the Organisational Chart?
Many intranets are structured around the organisational chart. It is well known that this method of grouping content is difficult for staff — they can’t find information if they don’t know who is responsible for it. However, it often seems too difficult to move from an organisational-based structure to a more intuitive topical structure. Before moving to a better structure it is necessary to identify why the intranet is currently designed around the organisational chart, and address these issues first.
Spencer, Donna. Step Two (2005). Articles>Information Design>Intranets>User Centered Design
#33112
Five Things to Know About Users
Over the years, we've studied the usability of hundreds of product and web site designs. We've seen designs that were incredibly effective for users and designs that fell tremendously short. One emerging pattern in our ongoing research is that design teams that know a lot about their users are more likely to produce user experiences that are usable, effective, and pleasing.
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2002). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Centered Design
#33113
Thirteen Common Objections Against User Requirements Analysis
Outlines some common objections to doing user research and provides some defense against them.
D'Hertefelt, Sim. InformationArchitect.com (2000). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Audience Analysis
#33138
This is a simple technique that enables one person or a group of people to create a categorisation of objects so that it is understood which objects belong with which other objects. Objects can be anything: menu items, blocks of content, proposed web pages, URLs. This method can be used by practically anybody after a few minutes practice.
European MultiMedia Usability Services (1999). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Card Sorting
#33139
Card Sorting is a technique for exploring how people group items, so that you can develop structures that maximize the probability of users being able to find items.
Gaffney, Gerry. Information and Design (2006). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Card Sorting
#33140
Card sorting is a user testing method for organising data into structure. There’s a lot of information about on what they are, how to conduct them. Problem is, they’re all over the place and mostly they’re written by scientists so tend to be a little difficult to grasp and bogged down in analysis (which can take over your life if you let it!) I’ve decided to document my understanding of how to plan, conduct and analyse a card sort, from a practitioners point of view.
Boulton, Mark. Mark Boulton (2007). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Card Sorting
#33141
Card Sorting, Part 2: Facilitation
You should now have everything ready to conduct your card sorts - cards, users, observers and most importantly a clear objective of what you want to achieve.
Boulton, Mark. Mark Boulton (2007). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Card Sorting
#33142
Card Sorting, Part 3: Analysis and Reporting
In the final part of the article I talk about perhaps the most important part of the procedure - Analysis. This is the part in which you can get the most bogged down. You must be thorough, ruthless and accurate. Card sorting won’t always give you the answer - it may just give you more questions. This is where the analysis comes in.
Boulton, Mark. Mark Boulton (2007). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Card Sorting
#33158
Results of a Study about Online Experience
Users’ “enjoyment” of a site is tied closely to how easily they can find the information they want and stay oriented at the same time. I think this is a given for technical communicators; we know that users want to get answers as fast as possible, and documentation must be navigable.
Gryphon Mountain (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Experience>User Centered Design
#33160
Redesign of the Monash University Web Site: A Case Study in User-Centred Design Methods
This paper presents a case study in user-centred design as applied to the redesign of the Monash University web site. It begins with an overview of user-centred design which is then contrasted with traditional development processes. The case study provides some background information about the project and the choice of methodology, an outline of the user-centred design methods used, and the nature of the multi-disciplinary team responsible for the project.
Alexander, Dey. AusWeb (2003). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Case Studies
#33164
User-Centered Design for Different Project Types, Part 2
Today's software applications need to be both useful and usable, supporting simple and efficient completion of tasks by the intended user audience. Part 1 of this two-part series on user-centered design defined the essential activities of useful and usable software. Here in part 2, Lynn Percival and Jack Scanlon describe the applicability of these core activities across a range of development project types -- selection and possible customization of a vendor application, evolution and rewrite of an existing application, and creation of a new application.
Percival, Lynn and Jack Scanlon. IBM (2002). Articles>User Centered Design
#33165
User-Centered Design for Different Project Types, Part 1
Today's software applications need to be both useful and usable, supporting simple and efficient completion of tasks by the intended user audience. Much has been written about methodologies for designing software that meets user needs. But little emphasis has been placed on what types of activities are truly essential in achieving these goals. Here in part 1 of this two-part article, the authors tap into their 30+ years of combined experience in applying such techniques to boil the design of useful and usable software down to its essential activities.
Percival, Lynn and Jack Scanlon. IBM (2002). Articles>User Centered Design
#33166
User-centric design's (UCD's) aim is to enhance and improve the user's experience with software or a product. This principle has benefits, but can it translate seamlessly to the commercial Web design process? Do UCD principles result in a customer-centric Web site that satisfies the diverse needs of potentially millions of visitors? UCD complements the process of designing and optimizing a site for conversion, but it was never conceived to address the intricacies of building a persuasive system.
Eisenberg, Bryan. ClickZ (2004). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design
