Reveall: What is a user centered design process?

Reveall: What is a user centered design process?

User-centered design is an approach to design that puts the user’s needs first and follows an iterative design process that focuses on the user’s needs at every step. This means that from start to finish, the Reveall design process is influenced and driven by the user’s behavior, values and expectations.

In UCD, meeting the user’s needs and responding to their feedback is the priority. Each design decision is evaluated on the value it has for the user and how efficiently it will help him achieve his goals.

There are five key principles that guide user-centered design:

• Early participation of end users in the design process.
• A clear understanding of the usage context and user needs in an effort to align them with overall business requirements.
• Regular collection, analysis and integration of user feedback throughout the product design cycle.
• Adopting a user centered design process approach to product development and delivery procedures.
• Using a iterative design process with an ongoing goal of improving the user experience.

User-centered design requires empathy, creative confidence, and the ability to learn from failure and adapt. The user centered design process helps designers create emotionally strong products that make users feel satisfied.

Four steps

The process of user centered design can be structured into four stages: analysis, design, evaluation and implementation. User centered design process is not a linear process; a cycle or part of the cycle will usually be completed several times.

Analysis

The first step in the Reveall method of user centered design is to create a vision and set your goals. The communication problem is examined and described in this phase. The target audience is, of course, central to this. Gathering information about your visitor’s knowledge, experiences and skills provides guidance for the other phases of the design process. Based on a problem analysis and a description of the target group, user tasks can be described and the information structure can be established.

• Establish vision and objectives
• Analysis of the target group
• Determine user tasks
• Define information structure

Design

The design phase can go through several times in a process, depending on the number of moments of evaluation. Conceptual development and the creation of a mental model are started in this phase. Creating mood boards, determining a navigational structure, creating storyboards, sketches and non-functional prototypes are the first steps in the design process and can be summarized as low-fidelity prototypes. After developing and evaluating these concepts, functional (online) prototypes can be developed and evaluated (“high-fidelity prototypes”).

• Low-fidelity prototypes (mood boards, diagrams, sketches, concepts)
• High-fidelity prototypes (functional prototypes).

Evaluation

After each intermediate step in the Reveall user centered design process, evaluation can take place. Here, among other things, a distinction can be made between user-driven and expert-driven evaluation methods. The choice of an evaluation method depends on the available budget, time constraints, available users and the form of a concept. Examples of methods that can be conducted with users include cognitive walkthrough, focus groups, co-discovery method and the think aloud protocol. Expert-driven methods are conducted by experts with extensive knowledge of the topic of communication or knowledge in the field of design/usability.

Implementation

The final step in the Reveall user centered design process is the development of prototypes based on the results of the evaluation. Even after implementation, it is wise to evaluate and fine-tune a design where necessary. Analyses based on visitor statistics or user-driven methods can be used for this, for example.