A key aspect of successful User-Centered Design (UCD) is evaluating early and throughout the UCD process. The Background: Accessibility & User-Centered Design (UCD) chapter introduces the User-Centered Design process.
This section provides information on incorporating accessibility into the following evaluation methods:
- Importance of Comprehensive Accessibility Evaluation
- Standards Review
- Heuristic Evaluation
- Design Walkthroughs
- Screening Techniques
- Usability Testing
Evaluating for Accessibility
If no usability or user centred design methods are currently being used in the organization
- Assess and list the potential costs and benefits.
- Relate the benefits to the business/organisational objectives.
- Consider what concrete differences UCD could make to the system. Find good and bad examples of similar systems, and show these to the decision-makers.
- Cite big names or similar organisations to yours that already use UCD.
- If at all possible get involved at the feasibility or requirements stage. If this is not possible, use the benefits of later involvement to justify earlier involvement next time.
- IAI may be a useful case study.
If your organisation already has some experience of usability testing:
- Assess and list the potential costs and benefits of earlier involvement at the feasibility or requirements stage
- Consider how you can contribute not just to the ease of use of the interface but to customising the design and functionality to meet business and customer needs. Relate the benefits of usability to the business/organisational objectives.
- Cite big names or similar organisations to yours that already use UCD.
- Inland Revenue may be a useful case study.
Introducing User Centred Design
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For organisations already committed to user-centred design a cost-benefit analysis is not essential but it can provide a valuable input when formulating a usability plan.
The technique can be used repeatedly as a development project progresses to reassess the importance of various activities. The process can also be used to compare different usability methods and so aid selection of the most cost effective method.
Justifying user centred design: Calculating cost benefits
If you are designing a UI, you should consider creating personas to guide you. Personas are one of the basic tools of User Experience (UX) design. A persona is a description of a fictional person representing a user segment of the software you are developing. Of course, the word “fictional” applies to the person not the description; that should be as grounded in reality as possible.
The Power of Personas
User-Centered Design (the focus of this section) is a well-established process that is used by IBM and many other organizations to deliver products that meet users’ expectations. This process has been supplemented by the Outside-In Design approach (see the book on this subject), which brings a focus on business value, and by the Agile approach to development, which is a set of best practices that can be used to support iterative development to improve time to market and stakeholder value.
This section includes:
- What is User-Centered Design? An overview of the User-Centered Design process.
- User-Centered Design principles The six principles at the heart of User-Centered Design.
- User-Centered Design process The six stages of the User-Centered Design process.
- Adopting User-Centered Design Strategies for adopting User-Centered Design practices in your organization.
- Getting started - Staying committed
- Cost justifying ease of use The financial benefits of making products easy to use.
- User-Centered Design FAQ Frequently asked questions about User-Centered Design.
- IBM User-Centered Design labs A look at IBM User-Centered Design Labs.
- Recruiting participants Methods and resources for recruiting representative users to participate in User-Centered Design activities.
- Get involved: An invitation to participate in user studies for IBM products.
The User Centered Design page at IBM Design
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Generic Work Process
About this toolkit (version 1.0)
This toolkit offers an overview of the methods and techniques which can be used throughout the user-centered design process.
Note: this site is still under construction, for more information contact Bas Leurs (Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, b.l.f.leurs@hro.nl)
This toolkit was created by: Bas Leurs, Peter Conradie, Joel Laumans, Rosalieke Verboom.
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