USER CENTRED INTERFACE DESIGN

User Centred Interface Design



User Centred Interface Design

Introduction

Since systems are intended to be run and used by users, then what a user wants is a system that does what he wants. He surely wants to find it easy and straightforward to use the system being developed. Simply, it should satisfy his needs. This paper will discuss the various matters that concern User-Centered Design, denoted by User Centred Interface Design, with respect to other software engineering approaches. It will talk about the User-Centered Design which is much more efficient than other software engineering methods in terms of process, benefits, and advantages. It will describe the cons of User Centred Interface Design and will state this revolutionary as of the best developed to date.

Analysis

What's a system that does a lot of things, or is powerful, but can only be operated by the engineer that constructed it because he knows how it operates? Even for him, it might be confusing in doing a particular task with his system. Therefore, in order to accomplish this task, systems are best built upon the intended users' needs. This whole process of including the user in the design process is referred as User-Centered Design. This method forces to put a user in the development team and to always consider him as a key ingredient to the software product. In doing so, the intended user could provide user tasks and what is referred by 'the ways of interaction' with that program. Another benefit in including the user in the design of a product is that he will feel a kind of ownership of the product and will be able to interact with it freely and independently. He will be happy to contribute to his future system which he will already know before he even gets hands on it. User Centred Interface Design, like any other software design, has a sequence of steps that should be followed for ensuring success (Wilkund, 1994).

Actually, User Centred Interface Design is integrated in other software models that show high reliability. This new model is made to follow some conditions in order not to miss any critical issues that form User Centred Interface Design. The best model in software development is probably the iteration model. An example is the prototype model: This model is circular, it uses iterations to complete parts of a system and then finishing them one by one will result in the final product. 4 main parts are included in this model and most other models as well and they are: Analysis, Design, Build, and Test (Cato, 2001). To include User Centred Interface Design in this process, we integrate it in the parts. The Analysis is made to include user opinions, tasks, and choices. These make the developers more aware of what the users want and not what the system should provide. The Design should include a prototype for the users to use, test, and report opinions. The Build should be iterative and the collected information ...