Designing for Humans: The Importance of Human-Centered Design in Software Development
As technology continues to advance and shape our lives, it’s important to remember that at the core of every software product are humans who want to solve a problem, fulfill a need, or have a strong desire. This is where Human-centered design (HCD) comes into play. HCD is an approach to design and development that prioritizes the needs and experiences of the people who will be using the product. By involving users in the design process, HCD ensures that software solutions are tailored to real user needs and goals, ultimately leading to more successful products (Geis and Guido Tesch, 2019).
Quality of Use vs Technical Quality
According to ISO 9241–210, HCD is a structured approach that applies knowledge and methods from the fields of work science, ergonomics, and usability to make interactive systems more usable. In the context of software development, this means considering both technical quality (ISO/IEC 25010) and human-centered quality, or quality of use (ISO 9241–220).
Technical quality, is the degree to which an interactive system meets system requirements, includes dimensions such as functional suitability, technical performance, compatibility, reliability, security, maintainability, and portability, while human-centered quality dimensions includes usability, user experience, accessibility, and avoiding harm from use.
According to Geis and Polkehn (2018), the overall excellence of an interactive system is the outcome of the combination of two factors: the technical quality and the quality of use. Even if the technical quality of the system is excellent, the overall quality of the system will still be deficient if the quality of use is lacking.
The pursuit of quality measures without taking into account user insights and well-defined user needs can create problems for companies or anyone trying to do software. This is precisely where UX professionals can provide valuable assistance. While the roles and responsibilities of UX teams may differ, they generally have seven key areas of responsibility (Wilhelm, 2019):
User Requirement Engineers: are responsible for identifying and validating user groups and their usage scenarios and contexts, using appropriate methods and procedures to collect and analyze data, and translating user needs into requirements that guide the design process.
UX/Usability Testers: evaluate development stages and test with users to ensure usability, following guidelines and standards to ensure quality and make recommendations for optimization.
Information Architects: organize and structure content and functions to ensure a user-friendly experience, identifying and developing central navigation elements, interaction objects, and views.
Interaction Designers: design the interaction and map usage scenarios and use cases, creating prototypes to test and optimize the user experience.
User Interface Designers/Visual Designers: create testable high-fidelity prototypes and design the user interface, using suitable methods and tools to create a design that aligns with user needs and is easy to use.
Metrics Analysts: measure and monitor key metrics to create a basis for continuous improvement, analyzing data to identify areas for improvement and making recommendations for UX enhancement.
UX Team Leaders: manage the UX team and ensure the quality of UX services, putting together and leading a team, supporting their development, and promoting UX internally.
Main Takeaways
In order to implement HCD successfully, it’s important to have clearly defined objectives from the point of view of the groups of people that will interact with the system, including real users in a structured and regular basis. The HCD process should be intentional, systematic, and data-based, with decisions based on objective assessment rather than just opinions.
Designing software products with humans in mind is essential to achieve success that aligns with both user needs and business goals. By adopting a human-centered design process, companies can ensure that they are creating solutions that fulfill actual user needs and meet their organizational objectives. With a team of UX professionals who possess specialized expertise in various areas of responsibility, companies can ensure that every aspect of their product is designed with the user in mind. By taking a methodical and structured approach to human-centered design, companies can close the gap between good and bad software, thereby improving their chances of delivering a high-quality product that meets the needs of users and the business.
If you want to know more about Human-Centred Design Process, I recommend you reading the next blog article I wrote:
Planning a Human-Centered Design Process: With Business and Human Quality Goals in Mind
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References:
Thomas Geis and Guido Tesch(2019) ‘Basiswissen Usability und User Experience: Aus- und Weiterbildung’
Thomas Geis and Knut Polkehn (2018) ‘Praxiswissen User Requirements: Nutzungsqualität systematisch, nachhaltig und agil in die Produktentwicklung integrieren’
Thorsten Wilhelm (2019) ‘Who belongs on a successful in-house UX team’ https://www.nutzerbrille.de/inhouse-ux-team/
