User centered design can be a controversial subject. It is a philosophy and process of design that evaluates the needs, wants, and limitations of the end user throughout all stages of the design and tailors the design to fit those needs, wants, and limitations. This sounds like a reasonable system of design for software interface systems since not all of the people using the software are designers or even expert-level users of computers or smart phones. The controversy results, in my opinion, from the implementation of user centered design.
During the process of user centered design, engineers are geared toward COULA attributes when designing software; these are: Compliance (to standards), Operability, Understandability, Learnability, and Attractiveness. Ideally these attributes are monitored and improved through early focus on users and tasks, software evaluation, and iterative design (repetitive design – various user interface points are as similarly as possible to minimize the learning process).
User interface evaluation examines the software’s functionality (recording of user actions, eye movement, and/or UI events), development of prototypical UI components, and performance of formal usability tests with humans. This is where designers especially begin to have problems and complain that the evaluation methods are inadequate. The testing phase of a user interface is probably not the area developers wish to spend more money and increasing the quality of evaluations would mean more frequent testing during design and lengthening the testing period to gain data from experienced users.
Another complaint is that the ultimate “end-user” is not usually the one who makes the final determination of usability. Rather it is the organization employing the user that usually determines usability. In this situation, it is my opinion that the organization is in actuality the user who should make that determination since the organization purchases the software. Individual consumers or employees who learn the software and become users will come and go in the course of business, but it is the business organization that remains constant. If the organization is concerned about its user’s opinion of the usability of the software, then they should be the one to acknowledge this and involve the users in that evaluation.
This seems to be an industry specific problem found when electronics companies are developing new products requiring a software user interface specific to the product. In a more generic application such as online order entry on retail websites, this problem seems to be less pronounced. The length of time required for a user to enter an online order is much less than, say, the learning time required for a new cell phone. The evaluation and testing phase of the online order user interface can have much more effective results using the same amount of money than can the cell phone producer.
So, while some may say that user-centered design is impoverished and is no longer an effective design philosophy, the real poverty comes from the implementation. All software will eventually have a user, whether a pilot flying a plane or a child on a game system. Whatever form that final interface takes on, the need for the user-centered design remains constant – no matter what title it goes by.
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