A comprehensive understanding of user-centric web design

also known as: background checks, customer-oriented design, focus on user design, empathy design, usability, usability engineering, usability testing, user experience (UXD) design, user-friendly design.

A user-centric design base

A user-centric design has a central premise: the best design products and services derive from understanding the needs of potential users. At the beginning of the design, designers actively communicate with end-users to gather insights to drive the progress of the design and to implement the entire design process.

The user-centric design approach provides new insights that are beneficial to all design projects, especially new product offerings, and are more needed in the implementation of further improvements to existing products and services. Understanding the user experience can lead the designer to doubt the original use of the process in his mind, to propose new hypotheses, the resulting innovation can really be a user profit.

Although most designers are aware of the need to design for end users, they often use their own experience or the results of the market to prevail. In contrast, users-centric designers who communicate directly with potential users to learn more about their personal experience are more likely to show users ' needs than the statistical data on their research reports. In fact, what people tell market researchers is not necessarily consistent with the real situation (if you look at it).

Many complete projects, in the later part of the concept Drill-down (concept develop), involve the user in doing some related feedback. But the user-centric, in the initial stage of design construction (formative stages), and users to communicate, and to formulate the design of the program (agenda, do not know what words good. Translator), and later to allow users to participate often found that want to do some big changes after too late.

User Observation and analysis

Based on the user's observation method: The designer lets himself penetrate into the users ' life scenes (such as working with them to complete work and family-related tasks), participates in and observes the user's life, and often chats (ask open-ended Questions) Something related to what is being done now or to their customs (social and enotional significance).

User-centric design emphasizes the need for designers to immerse themselves in the user's environment: it reveals that there are other ways of not expressing problems that can only be found in a user's environment. This observation can be found in all the complete interactions between those products or services that require more than one person to collaborate (e.g. between nurses and patients or between groups of workers).

The results of observation are analyzed, and several main design topics are summarized. It is usually shown to the design team in a visual form (video or picture) to highlight the focus and give them a basis for thinking. The more vivid the introduction and analysis, the more can affect the design team, affecting the development of products or services.

Prototypes, evaluations, iterations

As design ideas and ideas evolve, UCD designers will continue to collect information about user feedback, either by allowing them to participate directly in development, or by showing them prototypes (prototypes) based on the previous work (the product or service) to gain their views (evaluation). Depending on the project and the depth of the concept, the prototype will have different presentation methods, scripts, hand-painted panels, display panels, through the paper media or screen, until the final full function of the work model (working models).

As prototypes evolve, users may be invited to "wander", as if they were using it to accomplish a task or use them for simulated or real-life tasks. These prototypes enable the user to provide feedback on whether the user's needs are met as a whole and its step-by-step operability.

Analyze and evaluate feedback samples, and extend the results to design ideas for the next round of design and evaluation. (So continuous iterations until satisfied). The same here, vivid introduction is necessary, it can convince the designers who do not participate in the evaluation, tell them what is wrong. So it's a good idea to record the whole process so you can go back and see what's going on, and it can also provide a strong support for your point of view.

Show all users ' needs

The purpose of user research is to motivate and focus the design team (at some key points) rather than accumulate data (although they may be useful in the final stage of testing). When time and budget are limited, the focus should be on maximizing the collection of broader user needs (most products and services have many different types of users). You need to understand all the potential design needs, rather than repeatedly observing the same users or listening to their opinions.