Wed, Apr 4, 2007

Lie #1: User-centered design as exploration and discovery

by Austin Govella

For 90% of designers 90% of the time, user-centered design is less about design and more about documentation and validation.

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As practiced by 90% of designers 90% of the time, user-centered design is a lie.

For most designers, the old-world, ivory tower, methodical, staged discovery of requirements is a sugar plum fairy day-dreamed while juggling inefficient meetings, obscene deadlines, and unrealistic requirements.

The popular case study by Maya of their design of the Pittsburgh Pubic Library reads like designer porn. The typical designer will never work on projects so fine, so pliable, or so nubile.

If they’re lucky, many designers get to play UCD for a few weeks with a few deliverables before being dragged back to the day-to-day schlep of common project work. Most methods attributed to user-centered design are activities in fire prevention or the recording of history after the requirements have already been solidified.

Rather than being marked by exploration and discovery, designers most often practice UCD along-side or after the rest of a project. User-centered design, as practiced by 90% of designers 90% of the time evaluates and validates work that has already been done.

For 90% of designers 90% of the time, user-centered design is user-centered validation. For 90% of designers 90% of the time, design methods should be approached as validation, not discovery. We should assess the difference between validation and discovery and adjust our methods to take advantage — and to account for — these differences.

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