Dtech Unit 7 - UCD

User-Centred Design (UCD)

A design approach focusing on user needs, wants, and limitations at every stage of the design cycle. Avoids assumptions and bias.

Principles of UCD

1. Understand users, tasks, and environments

2. Involve users throughout

3. Use iterative evaluation

4. Address the whole user experience

5. Include multidisciplinary teams.

Empathy in Design

Designers step into users' shoes to improve usability and understand needs.

Usability

How well a human-made product (tool, machine, webpage, system, or process) can be effectively and efficiently used by users.

Usability Objectives

1. Usefulness: How quickly users can perform tasks after learning the design.

2. Efficiency: Perform tasks fast and with minimal effort.

3. Effectiveness: Use the design completely and accurately, prevent errors, and recover from errors.

4. Learnability: Ease of learning the design and remembering it on return.

5. Attitude: User satisfaction and likability of the design.

Benefits of Enhanced Usability

Improved product acceptance, enhanced user experience, increased productivity, reduced user errors, less need for training and support.

Characteristics of Good User-Product Interfaces

1. Simplicity: Clarity in design, e.g., iPod interface.

2. Ease of Use: Limited menu items, quickly accessible.

3. Intuitive Logic: Novice users can learn basic functions within 1-2 hours.

4. Low Memory Burden: Users don't need to memorize functions or relearn tasks.

5. Visibility: Controls are visible, and their use is obvious.

6. Feedback: Provides immediate information, like a key click or an icon.

7. Affordance: Indicates how an object can be used, e.g., handles for pulling.

8. Mapping: Layout corresponds to required actions, e.g., cooker hob controls.

9. Constraints: Limit how a product can be used, e.g., USB devices.

Population Stereotypes

Categorizing individuals into groups based on culture, class, gender, etc., allowing assumptions about their behavior, aesthetics, or values.

Advantages of Population Stereotypes for Designers

Allows assumptions and predictions about user behavior. Enables quick judgments and decisions. Identifies user needs and behavior to enhance usability.

Disadvantages of Population Stereotypes for Designers

Assumptions may not fit everyone in a group. Judgments can be incorrect. Behavior or product use may differ from the intended design.

User Population Design

The design of a product for a particular population.

Multiple Populations

A product designed for use by different or multiple populations.

Classification of Users

The process of classifying people into groups based on age, gender, and physical condition.

Physical Conditions

Issues like mobility issues, amputees, blindness, arthritis, etc.

User Group Feedback

Detailed feedback gathered from specific user groups for design insights.

Personae

Fictional characters created by designers to represent a user population.

Secondary Personae

Users who are not the primary target audience but whose needs should be considered.

Anti-Personae

Users for whom the product is not designed.

Persona Data Collection

The use of personae to collect data for market understanding.

User Requirements

Needs identified through observation and interviews.

User Testing

Involving potential consumers in testing designs and prototypes for valuable data.

Field Research

First-hand observation of a customer's user experience in their environment.

Field Trials

Real-world trials for observing customer interaction with products.

Ethnographic Interviews

In-depth, cultural context interviews with users.

Method of Extremes

Selecting users from the extremes of a population for design efficiency.

Observation

User trial where an expert observes the client using the product.

Interviews

Responses from users through face-to-face interactions to gather feedback.

Focus Groups

Group discussions for dynamic user feedback.

Questionnaires

Surveys to solicit information from users.

Affinity Diagramming

Graphical tool to collect and group information based on themes.

Participatory Design

Involving all stakeholders in the design process for better results.

Prototype

A model created to test product designs.

Usability Testing

Testing of a product's usability in a controlled or natural environment.

Natural Environments

Observing product use in real-world contexts.

Usability Laboratories

Controlled environments for product usability testing.

Testing Houses

Specialized facilities for observing product use in a controlled setting.

Pleasure and Emotion Design

Designing products to evoke satisfaction through aesthetic appeal and emotional engagement.

Attitude

Perceptions, feelings, and opinions a user has about a product.

Brand Loyalty

Consumer's continued preference for a product due to satisfaction.

Four-Pleasure Framework

A model identifying four types of pleasure in product design: socio-pleasure, physio-pleasure, psycho-pleasure, and ideo-pleasure.

Socio-Pleasure

Pleasure derived from social interaction facilitated by products.

Physio-Pleasure

Pleasure derived from the tactile feel of a product during use.

Psycho-Pleasure

Pleasure from cognitive engagement and emotional reactions when using a product.

Ideo-Pleasure

Pleasure derived from the values a product embodies, such as environmental or political values.

Design for Emotion

Designing products to increase user engagement, loyalty, and satisfaction through emotional connection.

Visceral Design

Design that aligns with people's expectations of how products should function and interact with them.

Reflective Design

Design that evokes personal memories and cultural meaning.

Behavioral Design

Design focused on functionality and how users will actually use a product.

ACT Model

A framework for creating designs that trigger positive emotional responses through attraction, conversation, and transaction.

Attract Part

Aesthetic-oriented component of the ACT model.

Converse Part

Interaction-oriented component of the ACT model.

Transact Part

Function-oriented component of the ACT model.