The document discusses user-centered design (UCD), which is a design philosophy focusing on the end user's needs, wants, and limitations during the design process to ensure high usability. It outlines various stages of the UCD process including user analysis, testing, and the creation of personas, as well as the key elements that contribute to an effective user experience. Additionally, it explores the importance of prototyping and the different types of wireframes used to visualize and test design concepts.

1. User-centered
Design
Ivano Malavolta
ivano.malavolta@univaq.it
http://www.di.univaq.it/malavolta

2. Roadmap
• User-Centered Design
• The Elements of User Experience

3. Good Design?
The visual part of a
design is only the tip
of the iceberg
http://paznow.s3.amazonaws.com/User-
http://paznow.s3.amazonaws.com/User
Foundation of
a successful design: a
user-centred design
user-
Centred-Design.pdf
Process (UCD)

4. A World without User-Centered Design…
http://bit.ly/w1rYO1

5. What did we learned?

6. Intuition behind UCD
Let’s focus on
the USER!

7. Definition of UCD (from Wikipedia)
User Centered-Design (UCD) is …
“a design philosophy and a process in which the
needs, wants, and limitations of the end user
of an interface or document are given
extensive attention at each stage of the
design process”

8. More formally…
UCD is a development cycle which takes into
consideration what users really need and makes
adjustments by exploring, testing and tuning the
design until these needs are satisfied
The result of this is a high level of usability, the design is:
usability
• effective
• efficient
• engaging
• easy to learn

9. UCD is Universal
UCD can be applied to all design practices that
have the aim to provide a good user experience
Ex.
• websites
• architecture
• magazines
• graphics
• …

10. UCD is a process
Designers have to:
1. analyze and foresee how users are likely to
use an interface
2. test the validity of their assumptions in real
world tests with actual users

11. http://paznow.s3.amazonaws.com/User
http://paznow.s3.amazonaws.com/User-
Centred-Design.pdf
Planning
Analysis &
The UCD Process
project!
3 parts of your
These will be the
Launch

12. Evaluation

13. Analysis & Planning

14. Concept

15. Design

16. Implementation & Launch
We will cover these steps later in this course…

17. Roadmap
• User-centered Design
• The Elements of User Experience

18. The User Experience 5 planes
design
concept

19. Planes dependencies
Each plane depends on the planes below

20. Planes dependencies
Ripple effect. If you choose an option out-of-bounds,
effect
you have to rethink lower options

21. Be elastic!

22. Strategy
Planning out the objectives
and goals of the project
Product overview User
• business goals • user research
• sketch product features – needs & goals
• competitors – segmentation
– no context
• PERSONAS

23. Personas
Invent fictional characters with their own story

24. Scope
Definition of scope, user needs,
requirements,
functional specifications
• Features of the app
– what does it do
• Prioritized Requirements
– constraints, rules, etc.
• Type of managed content
– how does it manage text, video, audio
– data provenance (external API, web service, DB …)
• Scenarios (using personas)
– describe how personas may interact with the app

25. Structure
Structural design of the
information space
• how the user moves through and makes sense of
tasks and information
– information architecture
• views definition and content nomenclature
– interaction design
• navigation among views
– SITEMAP

26. Sitemaps
They represent:
• relationship of content to other content and
• how the user travels through the information space

27. Skeleton
Designing how information is
presented to facilitate understanding
• Interface Design
– buttons, checkboxes, lists, etc.
• Navigation Design
– how the user travels among views
• Information Design
– how to arrange and group info + wayfinding
• LO-FI WIREFRAMES
LO-
– low fidelity for preventing confusion of visual design concepts
with information design concepts

28. Lo-fi Wireframes
• Views + user interaction + navigation
– a refinement of sitemaps

29. Surface
The look and feel of the product
• typography, colour palette, alignment, texture,
layouts, etc.
• HI-FI WIREFRAMES (close to mockups)
HI-
• PROTOTYPES

30. Hi-fi Wireframes
• Detailed, realistic wireframes

31. Prototypes
• Wireframes cannot represent
complex interactions
prototyping
• Different kinds of prototype
– paper prototype
– context prototype
– HTML prototype

32. Summary
Hi-fi wireframes
+ prototypes (if needed)
Lo-fi wireframes +
wayfinding info
Sitemap + content nomenclature
Scenarios (with ctx) + Reqs +
functionalities + data prov.
Product overview + objectives
+ Personas + competitors

33. References
Chapter 7
(until page 94)