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Tobias Misera, Head of User Centered Design, The Usability Company
A few years ago, many clients were not aware of the importance of User Centered Design (User Centered Design) in website development. The focus was solely on having a web presence at all costs in order to compete in the new market. There was a general lack of understanding of the complexities involved in designing a website.
When designing websites, designers had many new considerations. For example, in addition to creating a visual style and layout of an individual page, designers now had to focus on the aggregate collection of information and design a web site structure and navigation system, which are both elements of User Centered Design. These functions, although completely new to designers had become requirements to the web development process. In addition to this, design was at the end of the development process and designers were given tight deadlines and budgets. As a result User Centered Design elements were neglected because designers generally concentrated on visuals, which were ultimately easier to sell.
Most websites at this time looked arguably fantastic and had highly creative design but performed poorly. Users got lost within the sites, did not find relevant information and could not perform the relevant tasks. Many organisations were losing visitors, revenue and brand equity due to these issues with their websites.
Even if User Centered Design was considered in this era, it was considered at the design stage of the project, which is just before the production stage. There is generally neither enough time nor budget for possible change at this stage, which can often limit the effects and the ability to implement User Centered Design recommendations as User Centered Design can require a complete rethink of the project. The same is true for programmers and developers who were now faced with the task of implementing beautiful designs in a structure-less product or environment. If there wasn't a structure in place at this stage it was up to the developers and programmers to consider the organisation of information and navigation while producing the site.
Today, websites are increasingly complex and rich in information. This combined with the maturation of the industry resulted in a more complex development process involving more specialists such as new media project managers, digital strategists, E-marketers, usability experts and User Centered Designs. Interestingly, the bulk of new media jobs has shifted from creating new web sites to re-designing and/or re-structuring existing web sites. It's usually the usability experts and web statistics that point the clients towards User Centered Design.
User Centered Design is not graphic design, software development or usability engineering but it does touch on all of these and many other areas. User Centered Design takes a holistic view of websites by simultaneously concentrating on users, content and context. The complexities of website development now mean that it requires a phased approach for success. User Centered Design comes before the design and development process and should start at the beginning of the project with the planning, marketing and branding phases.
The Information Architect translates the business requirements and balances them with the users' needs. By using card sorting exercises to define the structure, creating wireframes to develop and test navigation systems and drawing sitemaps and process diagrams to document the website, User Centered Designs ensure that the content structure and navigation of a website is built to enable the user to achieve their objectives thus enabling clients to achieve their business goals.
All of these components are passed on to the design team who in turn use them as blueprints for their designs. In this way, the User Centered Design speeds up the design process significantly by allowing the designers to focus on what they're best at; design!
Getting a thorough understanding of User Centered Design and usability implications before the building process commences can considerably reduce development costs and timelines because the User Centered Design's recommendations are tested by real users at the beginning of the process hence avoiding over development and wasted investment during the project.
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