User-centered design approach

A user-centered design process involves the participation of users from the very first stage of development, and continues to involve users at each step of the process.

A user-centered design process involves the participation of users from the very first stage of development, and continues to involve users at each step of the process.

The goal of user-centered design is to create a product that works for the potential users and is well-designed for that user group. The first step in this process is to identify the target audience and to meet with them. By conducting interviews, watching users complete tasks and listening to them talk about their work, you will find out:

what the users need
what their work environment is like
what is important to them
what tasks they do both frequently and infrequently
how they accomplish these tasks now
how do they think about their tasks (the mental model)

By understanding the users and their tasks, you will easily devise scenarios to test your products. You can imagine your users trying to walk through your product, and you can bring users in frequently to test your ideas and assumptions.

The user-centered design approach is cost-effective in that prototypes can be developed on paper and tested before many hours and dollars have been spent developing a product that doesn't work for the users.


"Throughout the entire development process and beyond, users play a critical role in the design of easy-to-use products. After all, who knows more about which products are easy to use than the people who use them?"