From Apply Now,
Your Guide to Web Usability.
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There are a number of different usability methods out there: user personas, use cases, and paper prototyping. How do we know what methods to use and when? All of these methods can be used in different ways to achieve usability. For now, let’s focus not on the “how” but rather the “what” and the “why.” For that, we need the user-centered design (UCD) process.

Thinking About Process

The user-centered design process is an approach of designing products and systems; its main focus is on improving the overall user experience. We do this by asking questions about users, goals, and tasks, and then using those findings to drive the building and design of a web site. By placing the user at the center of the process, we hope to create good, usable designs.

The Process in Practice

In the ideal situation, you’d be reading this step-by-step guide to UCD before you even started a single line of HTML code. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case, but it’s important to note that the steps can and do overlap. Plus, it’s important to view UCD as a cycle as no site is ever completely and finally “done.” And you might find yourself skipping back to an earlier step, which is perfectly normal. There are many variations of this process out there, but the rough order will always remain the same: some combination of analysis, design, and building, with usability testing occurring at many different stages in the process.