User-oriented design

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The user-oriented design aims to create interactive products so that they have a high usability ( usability feature). This is essentially achieved by placing the (future) user of a product with their tasks, goals and properties at the center of the development process.

The main difference from other product design philosophies is that user-centered design seeks to optimize the product based on how users can, want or need to use the product so that users are not forced to change their behavior and expectations, to adapt to the product. The users are thus in the center of two concentric circles. The inner circle encompasses the context of the product, the goals of its development and the environment in which it would run. The outer circle includes more detailed details of the task details, task organization, and task flow.

In English, this procedure is known as User Centered Design . This term has become increasingly popular since the 1990s and has gradually replaced the term usability engineering .

history

The term was coined in the research laboratory of Donald A. Norman at the University of California , San Diego. The concept became widely known with the publication of his book, User-Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction. The concept gained further attention and acceptance in his groundbreaking book "The Design of Everyday Things" (originally called "The Psychology of Everyday Things"). In this book, Norman uses examples to describe the psychology behind what he sees as "good" and "bad" design. It highlights the importance of design in our daily lives and the consequences of mistakes caused by poor designs.

The two books contain principles for building well-designed products. His recommendations are based on the needs of the user, neglecting minor issues such as aesthetics. The main highlights are:

  1. Simplifying the structure of the tasks so that the possible actions at any point in time are intuitive.
  2. Make things visible, including the conceptual model of the system, actions, results of actions, and feedback.
  3. Correctly design the associations between the intended results and the required measures.
  4. Accept and exploit the constraints of systems.

In a later book, Emotional Design, Norman reverts to some of his earlier ideas to further elaborate on what he found overly reductive.

The user-oriented design process

The user-oriented design process is an iterative procedure that goes through several phases. In most process models (such as DIN EN ISO 9241-210 or ISO / PAS 18152) these are the following four phases:

Analysis of the context of use

During the analysis of the context of use, information about future users is collected and summarized in user profiles. The tasks and goals of the users, work processes and the working environment, which also includes the technical framework, are also analyzed.

Definition of requirements

Based on the findings of the context analysis, requirements are defined that are to be implemented during the design process.

Conception and draft

In this process phase, concepts for the future product are first developed. These will be further elaborated until a complete draft is available. Design documents, mockups or paper prototypes can be created as a result of this phase .

Evaluation

The created concepts and drafts are discussed repeatedly with users, mockups and prototypes are tried out. All of this serves to ensure that user requirements are actually met.

Principles

So that the user-oriented design leads to products with a high degree of usability , the following principles should be observed:

  • iterative approach
  • early focus on user and task requirements
  • empirical review of the designs by users

These principles were named by Gould and Lewis in 1985.

For example, the user-centered design process can help software developers achieve the goal of a product designed for their users. In addition, user requirements can be derived through careful analysis of usable products that are similar to the product being designed.

  • Cooperative design: involve designers and users on an equal footing. This is the Scandinavian tradition of IT artifact design that has evolved since 1970 and which is also known as participatory software development .
  • Participatory Design (PD), a North American term for the same concept, inspired by Cooperative Design, with an emphasis on user participation. A conference on participatory design has been held every six months since 1990.
  • Contextual design, "customer-centric design" in the real context, including some ideas from participatory design

The following principles ensure that a design is user-centric:

  1. The design is based on an explicit understanding of users, tasks and environments.
  2. The users are involved throughout the design and development.
  3. The design is advanced and refined through a user-centered evaluation.
  4. The process is iterative.
  5. The design takes into account the overall user experience.
  6. The design team includes multidisciplinary skills and perspectives.

Methods of user-oriented design

User-centric design can be characterized as a multi-step problem-solving process that not only requires designers to analyze and imagine the way users are likely to consume a product, but also their assumptions about user behavior in tests in the real world Validate world. These tests are conducted with / without actual users at every stage of the process from requirements to pre-production models to post-production, closing a loop of evidence and ensuring that "development is centered on the user." Such tests are necessary because it is often very difficult for the designers of a product to intuitively understand what a first-time user of their design will experience and what each user's learning curve may be. User-centered design is widespread in the design industry and, when used, results in increased product value and usability.

Different methods (e.g. from the area of human factors ) can be used in the context of user-oriented design . The best known and most widely used methods include:

Rhetorical situation

A user-centered design focuses on the rhetorical situation. The rhetorical situation shapes the design of an information medium. There are three elements to consider in a rhetorical situation: target audience, purpose, and context.

audience

The audience is the people who will be using the document. The designer needs to consider their age, geographic location, ethnicity, gender, education, etc.

purpose

The purpose is what the document is aimed at or what problem the document is to be addressed.

context

The context is the circumstances of the situation. Often the context answers the question: what situation triggered the need for this document? Context also includes any social or cultural issues that may surround the situation.

elements

visibility

The visibility helps the user to create a mental model of the document. Models help the user to predict the effect (s) of his actions in using the document. Important elements (e.g. those that facilitate navigation) should be emphasized. Users should be able to see at a glance what they can and cannot do with the document.

Accessibility

Users should be able to find information quickly and easily throughout the document, regardless of its length. Users should be offered a variety of ways to find information (such as navigation elements, search functions, table of contents, clearly labeled sections, page numbers, color coding, etc.). The navigation elements should match the genre of the document. "Chunking" is a useful strategy of breaking information up into small pieces that can be organized into some sort of meaningful order or hierarchy. The ability to skim the document allows users to find their information by scanning rather than reading. Words written in bold and italics are often used.

Readability

The text should be easy to read: by analyzing the rhetorical situation, the designer should be able to determine a usable font style. Decorative fonts and all capitalized text are difficult to read, but italic and bold type can help if used correctly. Large or small body text is also difficult to read, a screen size of 10–12 pixels sans serif is recommended. A high contrast between the text and the background between the figure and the ground increases readability. Dark text on a light background is best legible.

language

Depending on the rhetorical situation, certain types of languages ​​are required. Short sentences are helpful, as is well-written text that is used in explanations and similar bulk text situations. Unless the situation requires it, no jargon or technical terms should be used. Many writers will opt for the active voice, verbs, instead of noun strings or nouns, and a simple sentence structure.

literature

  • H. Beyer, K. Holtzblatt: Contextual Design . Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco 1998.
  • T. Hanimann, E. Ruedin: Contextual Design according to Beyer / Holtzblatt . Zurich: Benziger-Émosson, 2009.
  • A. Cooper, R. Reimann: About Face 3 . Wiley, Indianapolis 2007.
  • DIN EN ISO 9241-210: Process for the design of usable interactive systems . ISO, 2010.
  • J. Gould, C. Lewis: Designing for Usability: Key Principles and What Designers Think . Communications of the ACM 1985, 28 (3), pp. 300-311.
  • ISO / PAS 18152: Ergonomics of human-system interaction - Specification for the process assessment of human-system issues . Geneva 2003.
  • DJ Mayhew: The Usability Engineering Lifecycle . Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco 1999.
  • J. Nielsen, Usability Engineering . San Diego CA: Academic Press, 1993.
  • J. Ilg: More leeway: Methods of participatory learning space design . In: Library: Research and Practice 2016, 40 (3), pp. 347–360.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Notes on User Centered Design Process (UCD). Retrieved June 18, 2020 .
  2. ^ Donald A. Norman: User Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-computer Interaction . 1986, ISBN 978-0-89859-872-8 , pp. 540 .
  3. ^ Donald A. Norman: Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things . ISBN 978-0-465-05136-6 , pp. 270 .
  4. ↑ Greenbaum & Kyng: Design At Work - Cooperative design of the computer system .
  5. ^ Schuler & Namioka: Participatory Design .
  6. ↑ Hugh Beyer, Karen Holtz Sheet: Contextual Design. Defining customer-centered systems . Ed .: InContext Enterprises.
  7. ↑ User-Centered Design Basics. Accessed June 17, 2020 (English).
  8. ↑ Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design. Retrieved July 18, 2020 .
  9. ^ Notes on User Centered Design Process (UCD). Retrieved July 18, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Jeffrey Rubin: Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests, Second Edition . ISBN 978-0-470-18548-3 .
  11. ↑ Karel Vredenburg, Ji-Ye Mao, Paul W Smith, Tom Carey: A Survey of User-Centered Design Practice. In: pdf. Retrieved June 18, 2020 .