Project Update
I honestly don’t have much to report this week. We’ve just been in the process of getting access to external stakeholders, which involves collaborating with other branches of the company. We met with a customer success manager to talk about creating a stronger relationship with UXR so we can more regularly get access to clients, and we managed to get 1 external person scheduled for a meeting!! I also finished my persona.
We’ve also been doing some work unrelated to this specific project on setting up usability testing for an MVP being released this summer.
Readings
This week I decided to do some general reading on the fundamental principles of HCI and design. I read through the first few chapters of Don Norman’s seminal book The Design of Everyday Things and also looked at a few articles from Adobe and the Interaction Design Foundation.
What is user-centered design?
User-centered design is a philosophy that places a user’s needs, wants, and emotions at the center of the design process, with the ultimate goal of making products or services both useful and usable. There are several methods designers might employ to accomplish this, but a general user-centered design framework involves speaking to/surveying users to identify their needs, ideating several solutions based on these needs, prototyping and testing solutions, and iterating based on user feedback (Babich, 2019). While user-centered design can be applied to the design of any service or product, this paper will focus on UX/digital product design. Within the digital sphere, designers might focus on creating interfaces that are easy to navigate, accessible, visually appealing, and ultimately delightful to use (Norman, vii).
P.S. Sorry today’s reading is so short!! I’m feeling super overwhelmed right now :( but I did a ton of reading last week so hopefully it averages out.
Sources
Babich, N. (2019, October 18). User Centered Design Principles & Methods: Adobe XD Ideas. Ideas. https://xd.adobe.com/ideas/principles/human-computer-interaction/user-centered-design/
Norman, D. (2013). The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition. Basic Books.