What is User-Centered Design

It is a design paradigm that aims to develop projects in a participatory manner where the user is a key component in its process.

Is the process of designing a tool, such as a Website’s or application’s user interface, from the perspective of how it will be understood and used by a human user.

Design that evaluates user needs and preferences at all stages of the design process.

UCD is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of the end user of an interface are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. User-centered design can be characterized as a multi-stage problem solving process that not only requires designers to analyze and foresee how users are likely to use an interface, but to test the validity of their assumptions with regards to user behavior in real world tests with actual users. Such testing is necessary as it is often very difficult for the designers of an interface to understand intuitively what a first-time user of their design experiences, and what each user’s learning curve may look like. The chief difference from other interface design philosophies is that user-centered design tries to optimize the user interface around how people can, want, or need to work, rather than forcing the users to change how they work to accommodate the system or function.

Engineering process aiming at producing design solutions starting with a thorough use, user and business requirement analysis and ending with iterative usability evaluations.

Puts the user into the center of the software design process.

Approach oriented to the creation of products according to the specific needs of end-users.

An iterative design approach that considers the users’ needs at every stage.

Design that evaluates user needs and preferences at all stages of the design process.

Design that evaluates user needs and preferences at all stages of the design process.

A type of design approach that centers around users’ problem and needs to define products or services.

Is defined by the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) as a design approach whose process is driven by information about the people who go to make use of the product.

A design methodology in which end-users needs and requirements guide the design choices

Design that evaluates user needs and preferences at all stages of the design process

User-centered design (UCD) is a highly structured, comprehensive product development methodology driven by: clearly specified, task-oriented business objectives, and recognition of user needs, limitations and preferences.

User-centered (a cognitive/perceptual term) and usage-centered (a behavioral/functional term) are postmodern design descriptors often arbitrarily or ambiguously defined and interchangeably used and misused. In the context of 21st century instructional product design theory and practice, user-centered design focuses on constructing a user experience and environment with physical and virtual affordances that are manipulable, controllable, customizable, and adaptable from the essential perspective of the conceptual model of the learner. This means both (a) the learner’s metamodel of their own learning processes and the learning activities and environment, and (b) the designer’s model of the learner and the corresponding educational activity and experience, with the former driving and superseding the latter in the design solution. Thus, the conceptual model of the learner becomes the superordinate principle guiding the design process and learning outcomes (i.e., the highest level of the prescriptive taxonomy). Usage-centered design focuses primarily on the functional goal-based behavior of learners and structuring activities, procedures, processes, and corresponding affordances to optimize the effectiveness of the learner to efficiently accomplish those intrinsic goals. In both of these approaches, however, the conventionally deterministic structure of the content and the underlying information architecture of the knowledge domain are secondary considerations, while the learner’s conceptual model and intrinsic goal-driven behavior provide the guiding blueprint for the instructional design solution.

Iterative and incremental process for designing and developing systems with good usability.

Design that evaluates user needs and preferences at all stages of the design process.

Design that evaluates user needs and preferences at all stages of the design process.

A concept of platform design virtual space by which users participate in the design process in a variety of ways to ensure four basic principles, (1) ease of determining what actions are possible at any moment, (2) clarity of the visible workings of the system

The focus on end-user needs in the creation of a tool using various means (human factors research, participatory design, eye-tracking research, and others).

Iterative design process in which designers focus on the users and their needs in each phase of the design process.

System design that takes the user as the main point of interest and evaluates actions from the user’s point of view.

Iterative design process in which developers and researchers focus on the users and their needs in each phase of the process.

A design philosophy and process in which great attention is given to the needs, expectations, and limitations of the end user of a human-computer interface at each stage of the design process. In the user-centered design process, designers not only analyze and foresee how users are likely to use an interface, but also test their assumptions with actual users under real usage scenario.

An iterative design process in which intended end users are involved in each phase through a variety of design and research methods.

Process that implies the involvement of the target user during the planning and developing cycle. It is composed of several activities and it is based on the interaction of various instruments for analyzing, observing, planning, and assessing.

A type of user interface and interaction design in which the main focus is that the needs of the user are used as a way to inform design. This often involves a participatory or cooperative design approach in which designers and users work collaboratively.

Design process which gives attention to the needs of the end-user.

A type of user interface and interaction design in which the main focus is that the needs of the user are used as a way to inform design. This often involves a participatory or cooperative design approach in which designers and users work collaboratively.

It is a philosophy that places the person (as opposed to the “thing”) at the center of the design process.

It is a design approach in which the emphasis is on the users’ requirements and not on the designers’ capabilities. User-centered design helps achieve a high level of usability.