What Is User-Centered Design?
User-centered design (UCD) can be applied to the design of anything that has a userfrom mobile phones to kitchens. But when integrating UCD with agile practices, we are only concerned with the arena of software development. With agile development, the primary measure of progress must be related to working software. Once you adopt a user-centered philosophy, this is no longer the whole story. Unlike agile, UCD is not focused on thecustomerit is centered on the end-user. Furthermore, from a UCD standpoint, software is incidental; what is important is that end-users can easily and efficiently achieve their goals–with or without software. Why Do We Need User-Centered Design? There are a number of benefits that arise when advocating a user-centered philosophy. User-based research provides a mechanism against which design decisions can be validated and tested. Evidence-based decisions mean that guess work is minimized. What to build becomes much less of a matter for debate. More importantly
