Abstract

User-centered design improves systems development by ensuring that designs meet the real needs of their users—not merely what users know to ask for. User-centered techniques are used to find out about how users work and perform their tasks; to reason about users and about optimum solutions to their issues; and to test proposed solutions with users to ensure they are both useful and usable. In this entry we survey key user-centered techniques, discussing both advantages and disadvantages of each technique. We summarize with an outline of how to combine techniques into a full user-centered development process.