User-centered design

Draft

• “In broad terms, user-centered design (UCD) is a design philosophy and a process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of the end user of an interface or document are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. User-centered design can be characterized as a multi-stage problem solving process that not only requires designers to analyze and foresee how users are likely to use an interface, but to test the validity of their assumptions with regards to user behaviour in real world tests with actual users.” ( Wikipedia)

Types of user-centered design methodologies

• Extreme programming
• Participatory design

Note: Several approaches of the social sciences (e.g. Activity theory-based approaches such as expansive learning or the change laboratory method, e.g. action-research) are also user-centered designs.