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.
#33167
The Secret of Managing a Successful Website
The Web is about self-service. To achieve success in self-service you need to really understand how your visitors think and behave. If they are to serve themselves they must feel comfortable and confident. That requires getting to know their needs in a comprehensive manner. It requires an ongoing conversation with them.
McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2004). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design
#33220
Are We There Yet? Effects of Delay on User Perceptions of Web Sites
One of the chronic challenges that will be highlighted by emotional design is site download speed. There are many sources of delay in Web site and application delivery.
Straub, Kathleen. Human Factors International (2003). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Emotions
#33222
Fast-Downloading Websites are Still Important
People are impatient on the Web. They are function and task orientated. They want to get things done as quickly as possible. The average person is still accessing the Web over a 56 KB modem. You should therefore have a major focus on 'light' webpages if you want to increase reader-satisfaction.
McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2003). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Emotions
#33223
One of the most overlooked aspects of designing a Web site is how users get to it. Separate factions are often devoted to promoting, designing, and maintaining a Web site, and the lack of communication and involvement can lead to apathy or confusion. Too frequently is it assumed that visitors are knowledgeable about the company and Web site, and that they enter through the home page. False assumptions about visitor entry can plague even a well-planned, well-designed site.
Lash, Jeff. Digital Web Magazine (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Centered Design
#33224
When your Web pages load, you can't afford to let people be bored by a blank page at the outset. This article gives some tips on how to avoid common page loading problems and give users that valuable information they want even as more downloading takes place.
Logvinov, Eugene. IBM (2002). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design
#33234
Where's the Search? Re-Examining User Expectations of Web Objects
In 2001, Bernard determined that users were able to form a schema for the location of web objects on informational websites. The current study investigates whether users' expectations have changed since the 2001 study. Changes were found in the expected location of the site search engine, internal links, and advertisements.
Shaikh, A. Dawn and Kelsi Lenz. Usability News (2006). Articles>Web Design>Search>User Centered Design
#33371
I’d personally love a computer experience which emphasized ‘flow’ and gradual, constant change. No longer would every little change pull your attention away from an important task. Instead, those Mail notifications, system messages and the like could gently change without you noticing, until you decided you wanted to actually look.
Lang, Keith. UI and Us (2008). Articles>User Interface>User Centered Design>Cognitive Psychology
#33436
Persuasive navigation is navigation that persuades a user to do something. That something can be anything that you want the user to do—buy a product, sign up for a newsletter, or download a game. By understanding user needs and matching them up with business goals, you can persuade users to go where you want them to go, making them happy at the same time.
Lash, Jeff. Digital Web Magazine (2002). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Persuasive Design
#33437
The Five Issues that Persuade Visitors
Whenever visitors land on your web site, they consciously or subconsciously deal with five issues until they're satisfied, or better yet, delighted. These five issues will either induce the visitor to take the action you want them to take, or a lack of satisfaction may push them to find a competitor. None of these five issues is easy to measure. None has objective factors that are easily influenced. But all are nonetheless key to converting visitors.
Eisenberg, Bryan. ClickZ (2004). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Persuasive Design
#33443
The Trouble With Personalization
Personalization has rarely been implemented well. Its failure is usually because of a lack of understanding of customer behavior.
McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2006). Articles>Web Design>Personalization>User Centered Design
#33463
Contingency Design: Maximizing Online Profitability By Helping People When Things Go Wrong
Contingency design is design for when things go wrong. It's the error messaging, graphic design, instructive text, information architecture, backend system, and customer service that helps visitors get back on track after a problem occurs.
37Signals (2007). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design
#33475
Accessing Information: Not Everyone Does it the Same Way
As some in our profession have come to realize, social media and use of the Web in general have changed (and are still changing) the way in which people access and use information.
DMN Communications (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>User Centered Design
#33581
Jared Spool on User Research Methods
Adaptive Path’s Peter Merholz recently talked to the founder of User Interface Engineering Jared Spool about user research.
Merholtz, Peter. Adaptive Path (2005). Articles>Research>Usability>User Centered Design
#33582
Everyone is mad for personas. They’ve permeated the highest and deepest levels of organizations, and have become a standard interaction design tool. Whole projects are now built around creating them, and there’s a feeling that once you get a half dozen or so, your design problems will be solved. Presumably, your personas solve them for you. The problem is, most teams build personas from the wrong kind of user information, or worse, base them on assumptions. It’s no surprise that a Web search for personas brings up an amazing variety of persona sets, and most of them are terrible.
Saffer, Dan. Adaptive Path (2005). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Personas
#33647
Who are your users? How do they work? How do your products fit into their routines? Filippo discusses audience analysis and developing user profiles to create effective user assistance.
Filippo, Elizabeth G. Intercom (2009). Articles>User Centered Design>Personas>Audience Analysis
#33665
A good starting point for planning the future of your website is to analyze what you already have. To some extent we are doing this all the time. That is how new projects happen. However, a more formal approach helps to better inform your decision-making throughout the web project. There are two ways to better understand your current website: qualitative and quantitative.
Boag, Paul. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Audience Analysis
#33793
XML and SOA (Service-Oriented Applications)
The realization of SOA through Web services is intrinsically driven by core XML technologies. The emergence of service-oriented design principles, however, is affecting how XML technologies are utilized and positioned within contemporary solutions.
Erl, Thomas. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Information Design>XML>User Centered Design
#33865
Why Bother With User Documentation in Recessionary Times?
In recessionary times, organisations should focus on getting sales from existing customers - so customer retention becomes ever more important.
Cherryleaf (2009). Articles>Documentation>Business Case>User Centered Design
#33894
Lessons Learned with Quick Reference Guides: Timing and Truth
I should never fully trust anyone on a project. I don’t mean this disrespectfully, because I work with competent, talented professionals. But no one has the full picture of how the application will truly work. The quality assurance (QA) engineer usually has the clearest picture. The program manager and project manager are often living in a slightly different world, full of a vision of how the product should work and how they expect users to interact with it, but sometimes they’re missing important nuances in the actual implementation. The interaction designer builds prototypes and assumes the developers will build them to spec, but since the prototypes are usually HTML-based, and not in Java or .NET, variances are inevitable.
Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Emotions
#33934
Top Seven UX Design Definitions
Having determined to collect and share with you the top ten definitions of User Experience Design from the most credible sources, and so you to form your own, say, meta impression, I found the network falling just short. So, here are the top seven, with an invitation to you to contribute those definitions of user experience design (full three terms) that you find or know of. Inclusion is conditional, however, on a credibility standard that can only be defined as “secret sauce.”
Cummings, Michael. UX Design (2008). Articles>User Experience>User Centered Design
#33935
What Is User Experience Design
User experience design can sometimes be a slippery term. With all the other often used terms that float around in its realm in the technology and web space: interaction design, information architecture, human computer interaction, human factors engineering, usability, and user interface design. People often end up asking “what is the difference between all these fields and which one do I need?” This article examines the term and field of user experience to plainly extrapolate its meaning and connect the dots with these other fields.
Paluch, Kimmy. Montparnas (2006). Articles>User Experience>User Centered Design
#33936
User experience design is a subset of the field of experience design which pertains to the creation of the architecture and interaction models which impact a user's perception of a device or system. The scope of the field is directed at affecting "all aspects of the user’s interaction with the product: how it is perceived, learned, and used." User experience design, most often abbreviated UX, but sometimes UE, is a term used to describe the overarching experience a person has as a result of their interactions with a particular product or service, its delivery, and related artifacts, according to their design.
#33938
Ten Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design
The term “user experience” or UX has been getting a lot of play, but many businesses are confused about what it actually is and how crucial it is to their success. I asked some of the most influential and widely respected practitioners in UX what they consider to be the biggest misperceptions of what we do. The result is a top 10 list to debunk the myths.
Hess, Whitney. Mashable (2009). Articles>User Experience>User Centered Design
#33942
The Elements of Social Architecture
While your designs can never control people, they can encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior. The psychologist Kurt Lewin developed an equation that explains why people do the crazy things they do. Lewin asserts that behavior is a function of a person and his environment: Bf(P,E). You can’t change a person’s nature, but you can design the environment he moves around in. Let’s explore some of Alexander’s patterns I’ve observed in my work and the design work of my fellow practitioners.
Wodtke, Christina. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design
#33944
Despite the ubiquity of reading on the web, readers remain a neglected audience. Much of our talk about web design revolves around a sense of movement: users are thought to be finding, searching, skimming, looking. We measure how frequently they click but not how long they stay on the page. We concern ourselves with their travel and participation—how they move from page to page, who they talk to when they get there—but forget the needs of those whose purpose is to be still. Readers flourish when they have space—some distance from the hubbub of the crowds—and as web designers, there is yet much we can do to help them carve out that space.
Brown, Mandy. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design
