User-centred design is a repetitive procedure in which designers focus on the users and their needs in each part of the design process. This process involves users in every part of the design through different designs techniques and research, which helps create highly utilised and approachable by-products.
As UCD is a repetitive process, it roams between these four points in a loop mentioned below:
- Context of use
- Focus on User needs
- Design results
- Analyse system requirements
UCD focus depends whole on the User Experience:
In UCD, your project is dependent upon the precise understanding of the users, work and domain. The main focus is to pick and convey the whole user experience. And so, you should include expertise from across different authorities as well as the users with them.
Backing in UCD pays off:
When your design team includes the users in every step of the designing process, you put all your efforts and other assets into a productive way of finding out what works well, what doesn’t and why. You can refer to your users as a pre-warning system, which helps you tune your design and correct it technically. They can tell you many of your good and bad points, and your team might have a crucial oversight regarding usability and availability. So, that is why it is essential to recognise how robust the user-centred design is.
Four ways in which UCD pays off:
- With more user participation, products are far more attractive and meet their assurance and demands. This results in increased sales and lowers the cost of customer services.
- System designers modify products for the users in particular conditions and particular duties, which helps in reducing the possibility of human error which might arise. UCD guides to better outcomes.
- A great sense of connection gets developed by keeping designers in touch with users. Respecting privacy and standard of life is very important to create legit designs.
- A variety of cultures and human values are being respected through UCD- basically, a closure step towards creating good businesses.
The whole product design process depends on both views.
From a designer's point of view, it can cost a lot of effort and more time to build the design, while it is about completing the task or not for the user. From the designer’s point of view, it might be about building a good design or not for an application or website. While for the user, it saves time, costs, and great satisfaction while ultimately leading to great success.
The UCD relies on the following main points
- Research – Understanding the needs of the user
- Design – Don't make the user think
- Adapt – Nothing is perfect
- Measure – If you don't measure it, you can't improve it
The benefits of the User-Centered Web Design are mentioned below:
- Solves problems quickly.
- Helps testing and validation to get finished quicker.
- Clear project sight.
- Increased sales.
- Accurate estimation.
- Well-developed UI/UX.
- Reduce failures.
- Gains clients and customers confidence.
Likewise, if we understand them in one sentence, then:
- Quality: What users want truly.
- Context: Find out the perfect context to design for.
- Creativity: Combine UCD with branding and show up the creativity.
- Focus: Focus on what customers want, not on what they can easily build.
- Remove Egos: Verify the designs. For example, take surveys with real customers or users to understand their requirements.
The Difference Between User-Centered and Human-Centered Design
Human-centred Design is the superset of User-Centered Design.
Neither all people have the same behaviour or the same pattern of nature or needs. However, this User-Centered Design helps you to choose your audience having things in common.
It does not depend on making the designs just for any random users, but it is based on the target audience what they need and match-up their requirements and opinions.
The principles of User-Centered Design:
- Learnability: How will your users react to your product?
- Efficiency: How fast the users can finish the task?
- Memorability: Recognisable tasks can be easily performed for your site if it is memorable.
- Errors: The number of errors made by the users should become less.
- Satisfaction: Is your site experience enjoyable for the user?
This is proven that user-centred web design helps the designer make the website more user-friendly and make changes as quickly as possible. So, this idea helps developers to make the website more attractive to the user and gain more good reviews about it. They can also get the target audience for that particular website design. And so, the main aim behind this concept was to focus on user-friendly web designs.