User-Centered Design principles

Meeting the ease of use challenge is largely a matter of adhering to the following principles. For each principle, the goal is to involve users -- to ask the right people the right questions. Putting yourself in their shoes is a sure way to put your product at the front of the pack.

1. Set business goals. Determining the target market, intended users, and primary competition is central to all design and user participation.

2. 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.

3. Assess competitiveness. Superior design requires ongoing awareness of the competition and its customers. Once you understand your users' tasks, you must test those same tasks against competitive alternatives and compare their results with yours.

4. Design the total user experience. Everything a user sees and touches is designed together by a multidisciplinary team. This includes the way a product is advertised, ordered, bought, packaged, maintained, installed, administered, documented, upgraded and supported.

5. Evaluate designs. User feedback is gathered early and often, using prototypes of widely ranging fidelity, and this feedback drives product design and development.

6. 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.

Courtesy: IBM - Ease of Use - UCD