User-centred design

User centred, or UX (or UCD), web design is a practical design philosophy that puts the user at the heart of web design.

By seeking to understand the needs and desires of users from the beginning of the design process we can create online experiences that are a pleasure to use, and that customers come back to again and again.

There is no business without customers, without users. Users of new media, be it a website or a mobile phone application, are impatient. They will assess whether a website is for them in seconds or less. If they do stay, but encounter problems, they won't come back.

Websites need to communicate to users instantly and allow them to obtain what they are looking for easily.

User centred design was developed so as to avoid costly the mistakes that come from not properly considering why and how a user will use a product from the outset.

E-Consultancy has estimated that investment in user centred design returns six times what you put in, and that is quite a return on investment.

So what does the user centred / UX / UCD designer do?

The user centred designer's role is to:

Be a facilitator – someone who collects the requirement's that all stakeholder's in the business have;
A voice of the customer – someone who brings a customer's perspective to the requirements; and
Be a business analyst – the person who brings the business requirements and user requirements into a coherent unified set of requirements; and then
Acts as an intermediary – between the business and the design and the creative agencies; and then continues to
Lead user and usability testing of the website at regular intervals throughout the design process to ensure the user's needs remain at the forefront.

So what are the practises and methods of the UX designer?

The UX design method is founded upon gaining a thorough understanding whys – this is the 'study it' stages. At the end of this stage there will be a base set of business requirement and a base set of user requirements.

Once the whys have been understood, it's onto the 'hows'. This is the 'understand it' stage. How can the requirements be fulfilled, and crucially what are the priority requirements.

Only when the requirements are sufficiently developed do we begin to 'design it'. From testing potential information architecture by card sorting, to interrogating early designs with personas and user journeys to 1:1 usability testing, we cycle through 'optimise it', and 'test it'.

UX design requires agile project management, but each stage cycles rapidly, so requirements are refined, and mistakes discarded quickly before costly development is committed to

Below, the stages, and the techniques that can be employed are outlined:

Study it: This is the requirements gathering stage. We begin by researching the business' goals, using techniques such workshops, card sorting, and competitor benchmarking. At the same time we can research user requirements through focus groups, ethnographic field study, competitor analysis and use any existing source material such as web analytics and user feedback. The study stage provides material for personas, user stories, and early intelligence for SEO.
Understand it: We develop personas to test the requirements, and gain insight into the user journeys and task flows. We use task analysis to assign tasks either to the user or the system, and to balance benefits with monetary costs, to ensure requirements are achievable, realistic and eventual outcomes optimal.
Design it: We begin with paper prototypes, advancing to working models as the project progresses. Card sorting is used to develop the information architecture and interaction design. Also, accessibility is built into the prototypes from the design stage, as is its twin, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The prototypes are tested with business stakeholders, personas and users to validate requirements and eliminate errors early.
Optimise it: The value of good aesthetic design should not be underestimated; usability is about creating products that are pleasing to use. Useable copywriting makes for websites that are quick to understand, and along with SEO, websites that are easily discovered.
Test it: We test at each stage beginning with personas, advancing to 1:1 usability testing in the lab, and multivariate testing / A-B testing in the live environment. We can also test in the field. Testing begins as soon as requirements are defined and ends with final verification and project launch.