Re: UCD Description for SWUIWiki "How To" section

Well, I'm a Semantic Web researcher and lately also a HCI researcher
and practitioner...

For me UCD has been a great discovery. It is incredible the amount of
insight that emerges from observing how users interact with what you are
developing, the multiple and different views that they might have on
something that for the research and development team seems obvious.

Therefore, I don't see UCD as a constraint, for me it is just a checklist
of things I should do if I want to get an usable and accessible product.
It can be simply stated as "remember to build prototypes and make
others use them". And sophisticated observation tools are not required,
for me the more productive moments are talking with users once they
have tested the product.

Best,


Roberto
http://rhizomik.net/~roberto


On 01/06/07, Lisa Battle <lisa_battle@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm also a practitioner, not a researcher, but I think
> Roberto's description of UCD touches on a lot of the
> key points and would provide a reasonable starting
> point for the wiki. I don't think it's a good idea to
> mention "MPIu+a" or any other individual instance of
> UCD, though. Every consultant and researcher seems to
> feel a need to come up with a new name for it, but the
> essentials are the same.
>
> I agree completely with Eric that design involves
> leaps of insight, but in my experience those can occur
> within a UCD process as well as outside it. UCD does
> NOT ask  users to articulate design solutions. It asks
> them to describe their problems, needs, wishes, and
> real-life situations (ethnographic methods involving
> observation of real-life situations are commonly used,
> and very fruitful for inspiring design ideas that the
> users themselves would not have thought of). UCD also
> asks users to try out prototypes from the very
> earliest stages of design, and takes their feedback
> into account to make improvements, through an
> iterative process.
>
> Lisa Battle

Received on Friday, 1 June 2007 09:16:19 UTC