27/1/2018 Overview of User-centered Design | Introduction | DEV241x Courseware | edX

Course  Module 1 | Discovery  Introduction  Overview of User-centered Design

Overview of User-centered Design

 Bookmark this page

What you will learn in this course

Our goal is to enable graduates of this course to take their idea from concept to prototype, and communicate your
idea to potential investors.

After completing this course, graduates will be able to

1. Describe the bene ts of practicing user centered user experience (UX) design

2. Diagram a high level process ow for completing a UX design project

3. Understand some of the core principles that guide UX design

4. Understand core terminology related to UX design

5. Describe some of the sub-disciplines which make up UX design teams

6. Understand some common techniques for practicing UX design

7. Include direct experience creating simple UX design artifacts in their CV

https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:Microsoft+DEV241x+1T2018/courseware/b9acf9316c0a4c6e8741c56ff5189adf/ea466fe269804a508cfe2ad032ae1d3b/?child=first 1/5
27/1/2018 Overview of User-centered Design | Introduction | DEV241x Courseware | edX

8. Lead an iterative user centered design process to create a prototype which will contain few usability defects.

9. Be a more e ective partner with UX design and research

10. Continue learning about UX design through links to reference documents

Why is a user-centered approach necessary?

At some point, a user will choose to use your software or a competitor's software. Even if you're developing an in-
house application with a captive audience, if you don't focus on supporting users in reaching their goals e ciently,
they will waste valuable resources in completing necessary work, resulting in excess costs and decreased morale, and
they will likely nd external workarounds to accomplish their work. This is often referred to as the democratization of
IT, which might be a euphemism for workers sidestepping low usability systems and bringing their preferred systems
into the workplace. If you're developing a consumer application or service then you've likely got dozens if not
hundreds of competitors just a click away.

There is an argument to be made for exploring technical breakthroughs with little regard for convenience. Sometimes
being rst to market with a groundbreaking technology is the correct business strategy. The issue is that, in order to
reach the masses of people beyond technology enthusiasts, even a groundbreaking technology needs to enable
interactions that meet customers' expectations for solutions and convenience.

https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:Microsoft+DEV241x+1T2018/courseware/b9acf9316c0a4c6e8741c56ff5189adf/ea466fe269804a508cfe2ad032ae1d3b/?child=first 2/5
27/1/2018 Overview of User-centered Design | Introduction | DEV241x Courseware | edX

Image credit: Rogers, E. M. (1995). Di usion of innovations, Fourth edition. New York: The Free Press.

A related chart shows how this adoption curve relates to the maturity of the technology, and explicitly demonstrates
user experience as a key di erentiator.

https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:Microsoft+DEV241x+1T2018/courseware/b9acf9316c0a4c6e8741c56ff5189adf/ea466fe269804a508cfe2ad032ae1d3b/?child=first 3/5
27/1/2018 Overview of User-centered Design | Introduction | DEV241x Courseware | edX

From Norman (1998: The Invisible Computer), modi ed from Christensen, C. M. (1997) The innovator’s dilemma: When new
technologies cause great rms to fail.

In a market where customers want solutions and convenience, you need to understand what problems they need to
solve as well as what convenience means to them. This involves understanding the way they think about the job
they’re hiring the software to do, and also understanding the context they’re trying to do that job in.

One cautionary tale from the industrial design eld describes the manual override for the escape hatch of the Soyuz
space shuttle. The return ight from Salyut space station in 1971 encountered the perfect storm of failures, leaving the
cosmonauts exposed on re-entry to the earth’s atmosphere. The facility for manual control of the hatch required
protracted e ort. Cosmonauts had proven they could complete the task based on ergonomic assessments made on
the earth’s surface. The context of use for accomplishing the task was actually the rapidly decompressing environment
of a capsule re-entering the atmosphere. The physical condition of the cosmonauts made completion of the task
impossible, and all three lives were lost. Although lives might not be at stake if your software design fails, a user will
simply abandon your application if it isn’t workable in their current context.

Learn About Veri ed Certi cates

© All Rights Reserved



https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:Microsoft+DEV241x+1T2018/courseware/b9acf9316c0a4c6e8741c56ff5189adf/ea466fe269804a508cfe2ad032ae1d3b/?child=first 4/5