Introduction to User-centric Design

Posted on October 2nd, 2021

Part of Notes on Software Design

Developers often develop for themselves, and will be motivated to develop products that work for them. However, we are not typical users so many considerations must be made:

• Demographics - UX and UI must be intuitive specifically to the user-base
• Technical familiarity
• Domain familiarity (or lack thereof) - either way, not too simple or complex

Furthermore, users no longer accept bad design; there are many alternatives on modern and most users are familiar with good design.

Design Focus

Any part of an interactive system that users interact with

• Physically: input
• Perceptually: feedback
• Conceptually: what is it and what does it do?

Lifecycle

1. Analysis

   • Starting point
   • Who is the user?
     • Child (intuitive but simple)
     • Teen (fastest and hardest to please)
     • Old (unintuitive and simple)
   • User domain knowledge is also important to consider; under or over-detailed applications can cause issues

2. Design

   • Wireframes
     • Visual demonstration of the function design of the application (layout and flow)
   • Prototypes

3. Evaluation

4. Implementation

5. Deployment

User Inclusion

Participatory design is where users provide feedback during the design process. As wireframes are produced by the designed, the client an feed back iteratively.

Co-design is where users are actively involved in the design process, providing contributions to the design in addition to feedback during the later stages.