What is User-Centered Design?

User-centered design follows a logical process. The steps below outline the User-Centered Design process that can be used to help make intelligent business decisions about a website design and purpose.

Step #1: Evaluate Business Goals

What are the target markets, the intended users for this website/application, and who is the primary competition of the business? What customer needs does the site intend to fill via the website or web application?

Step #2: Understand The Users

Who is the user and what task or set of tasks is he trying to accomplish? First, answer this question, then figure out a way to make accomplishing this task as simple, fast and enjoyable as possible. Simple, uncluttered designs, that make good use of variations in color, size and texture (and sometimes, animation)as cues for the user.

Step #3: Assess The Competition

Assess how well the website accomplishes tasks when compared to alternative methods its competitors offer to accomplish similar tasks. It is only natural to seek an advantage over your competitors.

Step #4: Create Total User Experience

Everything that the user sees or uses related to the website is tied with the overall user experience. User experience doesn't end when the browser window closes. User experience should be an enterprise-wide effort from the scripts used by customer service, to the glossy 4-color print brochure.

Step #5: Evaluate

Before starting the final design and development stage prototypes are built during each phase of the design from high-level concepts on paper, all the way to fully-functional HTML prototypes.

Step #6: Monitor

Finally, mechanisms to monitor and collect user feedback for a website are put into place. A periodic competitive analysis is performed to stay on top of current industry situations. This continued monitoring is the basis for site improvements and for reactions to market changes.