By Brian Still | Member
This column examines the ways technical communicators contribute to the development of more usable products, especially those used in complex, dynamic environments. Novel usability evaluation methods and design techniques, as well as those rediscovered or repurposed, will be the focus. Please send your comments, questions, and suggestions for future articles to me at brian.still@ttu.edu.
Ushered into existence with the groundbreaking work of Donald Norman in 1986, user-centered design (UCD) focuses on user needs and wants within realistic contexts of use. As Norman writes, “User-centered design emphasizes that the purpose of the system is to serve the user, not to use a specific technology, not to be an elegant piece of programming. The needs of the users should dominate the design of the interface, and the needs of the interface should dominate the design of the rest of the system” (Norman 1986).
How should one go about doing that? Well, there are a lot of different approaches to consider, including thorough user research and profiling, as well as environmental and competitor analyses. Multiple methods also exist to help designers effectively integrate users into the process. My book, Fundamentals of User Centered Design, which I co-authored with Kate Crane, covers all of these approaches and methods in detail (it’s due out with Taylor and Francis’s CRC Press in 2016). Unfortunately, a column like this can’t offer such detail, so the best I can do here is impart an understanding of some key principles you should consider, learn more about, and ultimately find ways to implement in anything you design, such as documentation, websites, mobile applications, etc. If you make things for people to use, employing a UCD approach guarantees that users are the focus of your work.
Involve Users Early and Often
This involvement doesn’t make the user the designer, but it does make their needs and wants a part of the design process, as early as possible, before a prototype is created. Eric Raymond, in talking about the value of open source software (OSS), notes that one of the valuable things about OSS is that more developers, working together, openly sharing code, means fewer problems: “More eyeballs, less bugs.” This is true also for UCD. By focusing as soon as possible on user needs and wants, the design is exposed to more eyeballs, the important eyeballs of the users, and potential big problems are discovered and addressed before they become too big to be fixed.
At the beginning before a prototype is created, during prototype creation and testing, and when the product rolls out and becomes live, users should be involved as much as possible. Surveys, interviews, focus groups, site visits, usability testing, analytics—the list of methods goes on. This is always a challenge, integrating users effectively into the design process, but the value returned to you for including users at every stage of the process, catching problems and saving money and then eventually creating a better product that your users like and buy, is your reward for the hard work you put into integrating users early and often.
Design for Use in Context
Users live in the real world and use the things made for them in a dynamic, complex real world. Jeff Hawkins invented the Palm Pilot. Before he put what became a game-changing technology into the marketplace, he wanted to know how it would be used, and how that use could be made more effective, for users in their everyday activities. So he literally he cut a block of wood to approximate the size he envisioned for the Palm Pilot, used a chopstick for a stylus, and then he walked around experimenting with his rough prototype to understand how it would be used in context.
Don’t guess. Don’t create something and get feedback on it from unrealistic users in unrealistic settings. Understand the situations where users will use a product and design for use in those situations.
Keep It Simple
In a trend away from overloaded, drop-down menus that forced the user to navigate through multiple options which often had child or grandchild menu options, Web designers made efforts in recent years to remove or hide less used features so that users could interact with a cleaner, more intuitive interface. The hamburger menu that has resulted from this is arguably a move too far in the wrong direction, away from complicated menus, to be helpful. Still, there is an important balance to be struck in giving users what they need and want but finding a way to make that simple. Google’s search makes it simple. Amazon’s one click buying makes it simple. If it is important to the user, try to make it simple for them to do it. If it isn’t important, try to find ways to hide or remove it so that it doesn’t get in the way of the user viewing the rest of the interface as simple and thus easy to use.
Know Your Users
What do your users like, not like? How do they work? Where do they work? What are they good at, not good at, need help with? There is a rich collection of heuristics out there that guide you on different user types. Many argue that you should design for the mainstream or intermediate user since most people that use products are neither beginners nor experts. There’s some logic to this. But a better approach is to research your users as much as you can and then create personas and profiles that reflect who they actually are. As you begin to design and test prototypes of your products, even as the products become available for everyone, continue to gather feedback and keep your knowledge of your users current. The more you know about your users, the better your products will be for them.
Design for Emotion
Users sometimes just take milliseconds to make a decision about a product, and that decision is typically driven by emotion more than logic. We cannot just design for a product to be usable. It’s important but not enough because it doesn’t take into consideration the fact that users are emotionally motivated. Norman (2013) suggests that a good, user centered product appeals to users viscerally, behaviorally, and reflectively. In other words, an effective UCD product makes the user want to pick it up and use it—it’s a positive, visceral reaction. It also makes us feel satisfied or effective using it, appealing to our feelings and influencing our behavior. Finally, when we think about or reflect on using the product, we feel emotionally positive about the image of our using it. For example, I buy a mobile device because I like the sleek design, the color, the large, inviting touch screen (visceral), I like how easy it is to use (behavioral), and I like the idea that I have such a cool, hip device (reflective). Not every product can be so emotionally appealing, especially if it is something a user must use in the workplace. But good UCD still makes that product emotionally effective, if anything finding ways to reduce or eliminate negative emotional feedback.
Trust But Verify
If you’re designing something, you should trust your vision, your capabilities, and your knowledge of the product, the user, and the situation. But verify that trust. Set up places along the way during the course of the design to have users try out what you’ve made for them so you can verify that what you’re doing is achieving their needs and wants. And don’t just trust what users tell you. Triangulate your findings by drawing on different kinds of feedback, namely verbal, observational, and performative data from users. Ask users what they think, but also watch them use the product and measure the performance of that use. If all of these confirm a problem, you’ve verified more accurately that it is likely a problem. Trust that you’ve done good research, that you’ve created a good design, especially if you’ve followed sound UCD practices. But verify that trust.
Discovery Never Ends
The acronym we emphasize a lot when designing for and also evaluating user experience is DEAR: discover, evaluate, analyze, report. Good UCD is about an ongoing discovery process. You need to research your users, assess the situations where they will use the product, balance user needs and wants with contextual demands, client goals, and material limitations of the product, and then you must create prototypes, testing them all with users and then using that feedback to discover more about user needs and wants and, in that process, discover how to make the final product as effective, satisfying, and efficient to use as possible. Good UCD never ends, even when a product is created.
References
Norman, Donald. Cognitive Engineering. In User Centered Systems Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction, edited by Donald Norman and Stephen Draper, pp. 31–61. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1986.
Norman, Donald. Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books, 2013.
