What is a user-centred design plan?
A user-centred design plan is the sequenced specification of a scope of IA and UCD work, ideally based upon some detailed requirements capture, that names a suite of specific UCD deliverables, required to create a user experience that is useful, usable and desirable.
Typically, such a plan focuses upon the four inter-related tasks (qua phases, waves, pods, modules or whatever term you prefer) of Discovery, Definition, Origination and Implementation (and see production methodology for more on this topic).
Why bother planning at all?
The purpose of planning user-centred design activity is to ensure that projects put the needs of human beings at their core, such that the plan:
- Facilitates integrated interdisciplinary work - particualrly amongst different project team resources, because UCD works best as an interdisciplinary approach. Various disciplines are typically involved: designers, psychologists, ergonomics specialists, technicians, economists, etc. These groups should be integrated, dependent on domain-specific needs
- Involves all relevant team members - via regular stakeholder meetings. A practical guideline for a project manager would be to initiate a stakeholder meeting at the beginning of the project and to repeat these meetings regularly: daily, if necessary. All relevant parties should be consulted when constructing a usability plan and their backing should be secured. The plan will need to be sufficiently flexible to accommodate changing development schedules
- Helps to manage design iterations - another challenge for a UCD-oriented project manager is to manage the (inevitable and desirable) design iterations involved. The iterative nature of UCD is a pre-condition to ensure that the final product is really oriented to the users' needs. But in order to achieve this iterative procedure, an explicit plan containing the schedule for the design and evaluation steps should be produced (and see Agile versus waterfall for more on this). This plan should be regarded as a working document that is to some extent flexible to changes of conditions and constraints.
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