Human-Centered Design: Process Overview Challis Hodge July 17, 2003

1. Human-Centered Design: Process OverviewChallis HodgeJuly 17, 2003

2. Contents • What Do Designers Do? • What is Human-Centered Design? • Why Human-Centered Design? • Human-Centered Design Principles • Human-Centered Design Process Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

3. What do Designers Do? Customers Business Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

4. Corporate Understanding Technology (making things) People (understanding in context of daily life) Time Why Designers Are Important! Gap! Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

5. What is Human-Centered Design? • A methodology that maximizes the likelihood that a product will meet a user’s wants and needs, behave the way they expect it to, and provide them with a quality user experience. • Often referred to as User-Centered Design or UCD • Assumes that all participants in the design process bring a personal bias to the process and that the actual end-users are the only participants who can come close to providing objective input. After all, they are the going to use the solution! Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

6. The “Brains Around the Table” Rule: It isn’t possible to sit around a conference table and imagine correctly what people want & need. Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

7. Why Human-Centered Design? • Usable products are desirable products and that makes good business sense, especially in highly competitive markets. • Quality user experiences = business value! They increase sales and customer satisfaction while, enhancing product and company brands. • It’s often a lot more expensive, if not impossible, to make changes after a product is completed. [Frank Lloyd Wright] Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

8. Why Human-Centered Design? (cont’d) “You can fix it on paper with an eraser, or you can fix it on the construction site with a sledge hammer.” Frank Lloyd Wright It can cost 10 times as much to correct user interface problems in development than in design and 100 times after product release.Source: Software Engineering: A Practitioners Approach, Usability Engineering, 1993 Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

9. Why Human-Centered Design? (cont’d) • As designers we want our products to make it to and succeed in the marketplace. Designers typically care about people! • Proper application of Human-Centered Design methodology will be invisible in the final design solution but it’s absence won’t be! • Deliver a quality user experience and a customer will tell three friends…deliver a bad user experience and a customer will tell the whole world! Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

10. Human-Centered Design Principles • Understand the Problem:  Determining the target market, intended users, and primary competition is central to all design and user participation. You have to know who you’re designing for! • 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 Competition:  Successful design requires ongoing awareness of the competition and its customers. Test your users’ tasks against the competition. You can’t design successfully in isolation! Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

11. Human-Centered Design Principles (cont’d) • Design the Total User Experience:  Everything a user sees and touches should be designed in concert by a multidisciplinary team. • 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. Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

12. Human-Centered Design Process • Market Definition: Define the target audience, identify competitors, and determine the user needs. • Task Analysis: Identify and understand the users' goals and tasks, context of use, etc. • Competitive Evaluation: Determine the design strengths and weaknesses of the competition.  • Concept Development: Using the results from steps 1, 2 & 3, create several concepts and choose a final direction based on user input. • Iterative Design: Periodically solicit user feedback on the evolving design, and iterate the design based on analysis of users testing. • Benchmark Testing: Test your solution (against the competition if appropriate) to verify that it meets objectives. Repeat 5 & 6. Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

13. Example Process: Insight-Driven™Process Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

14. Validity & Accuracy of Results I asked the user (what the user says) I am the user (what I think) Greater Understanding of People Levels of Research and Understanding Observing people within the context of their daily lives yields deeper and more accurate understanding of their goals, tasks, wants and needs I observed the user (what the user really wants & needs) Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

15. Market Research • Market segmentation • Demographics • Industry data • Secondary Research • Reports • White papers • Industry best practices • Competitive analysis • User Testing • Lab or field based • Time on task • Error rates • Satisfaction • Emotive response • Iterative Design & Participatory Design • Card sorting • Lo-fi Prototype testing • Hi-fi prototype testing • Behavioral / Contextual Research • Ethnography • Contextual observation • Contextual interviews • Field studies • User Testing • Lab or field based • Time on task • Error rates • Satisfaction • Emotive response • Surveys, Focus Groups & Discovery • Self documentation studies • Questionnaires • Electronic facilitated focus groups • Online Measurement & Analytics • CRM • Log analysis • OpinionLab • WebCriteria • ServiceBots Many Methods for Research & Understanding Human-Centered Design: Process Overview

16. The end of all thought must be action.-Aldous Huxley