User-centred principles revisited
Continuing to provide illustrations of the thesis that the "principles" of UCD are more akin to heuristics or fashion statemebnts, here are another set of six (6) common "principles" for user-centred design.
The difference here might be more to do with methodology than substance, i.e. these principles are perhaps intended to encompass (or circumscribe) a complete UCD process, rather than being specific points of best practice.
Judge for yourself.
- Set business goals - determining the target market, intended users, and primary competition is central to all design and user participation
- Understand users - a commitment to understand and involve the intended user is essential to the design process. If you want a user to understand your product, you must first understand the user
- Assess competitiveness - superior design requires ongoing awareness of the competition and its customers. Once you understand your users' tasks, you must test those same tasks against competitive alternatives and compare their results with yours
- Design the total user experience - everything that a user sees and touches should be designed together by a multidisciplinary team. This includes the way a product is advertised, ordered, bought, packaged, maintained, installed, administered, documented, upgraded and supported. This is akin to the "out of the box" experience
- Evaluate designs - user feedback is gathered early and often, using prototypes of widely ranging fidelity, and this feedback drives product design and development
- Manage by continual user observation - throughout the life of the product, continue to monitor and listen to your users, and let their feedback inform your responses to market changes and competitive activity
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