A Guide to User-Centered Design
By: Andrew Gray
Tags: User Experience, Design, UX, Humancomputer Interaction

What is Human-Computer Interaction?

Before we get into my experiences, I want to give you a brief background on what HCI is and how it connects to User Experience (UX). Human-Computer Interaction is a multidisciplinary practice that focuses on both the interaction between the user and the computer as well as the design of the computer interface. As its name implies, HCI consists of three parts: the user, the computer itself, and the ways they work together.

User

By user, I mean an individual user or a group of users working together. An appreciation of how people relay information through sight, hearing, and touch is vital. Also, different users form different conceptions or mental models about their interactions and have different ways of learning and keeping knowledge.

Computer

When I say computer, I’m not just talking about your desktop computer. I’m referring to any technology ranging from smart watches to virtual/augmented reality. You’re probably aware of how much smartphones and tablets have paved the way for tons of new and unique interactions between humans and computers. The potential of these new types of interactions is absolutely huge but we’ve still got a long way to go before they become truly useful and usable.

Interaction

There are obvious differences between humans and machines. In spite of these, HCI attempts to ensure that they both understand each other and interact successfully. In order to achieve a usable system, you need to apply what you know about humans and computers and consult with your users in order to understand their needs. This, in turn, will help you deliver a product that is efficient, effective, and enjoyable to use.

The Value of Human-Computer Interaction

HCI is a broad field which overlaps with areas such as user-centered design, user interface design and user experience design. In many ways, HCI is the backbone of UX. The practical considerations for products that UX designers concern themselves with have direct links to the findings of HCI specialists about users’ mindsets. This collaboration helps designers to drive impactful changes in the market and society.

Understanding the user through UX

User experience is how you feel about every interaction you have with what’s in front of you at the moment you’re using it.

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” — Steve Jobs

Great user experience design not only highlights and promotes your product, but it has also become a key part of building and growing customer confidence. There’s a lot to consider if you want to understand the full user experience, and Peter Morville breaks it down beautifully with his UX Honeycomb:

User Experience Honeycomb.

The honeycomb hits the sweet spot by serving several purposes at once. It is a great tool for advancing the conversation beyond usability and for helping people understand the need to define priorities. Is it more important for your product to be desirable or accessible? How about usable or credible? It all depends on your unique balance of context, content, and users.

With all of this in mind, the primary factor of success ultimately lies in the fact that you keep your user in the center of your design process. This approach allows you to create designs that are clean, simple, intuitive, flexible and engaging, and provide a WOW experience to your users and thus differentiate you from your competitors.

My Design Process

In order to create these multifaceted designs, you must have a well-structured design process. This is usually an iterative method that helps you continuously improve and polish your designs. In the process, you go through different stages repeatedly while evaluating your designs on each stage. Each stage involves relevant stakeholders in your organization that take part in the process to make your products highly efficient and usable.

My process consists of six stages:

Graphic created with Figma.

Understand

In order to provide a viable solution, you first need to understand the problem. This stage is for conducting initial brainstorming sessions to get input on the problem and gain a better understanding of its requirements.