Disappointing alternatives to user-centered design
If you work for a large corporation, chances are you talk a lot about user-centered design. "It's all about the user." "Lead with design." "Design for solutions, not beautification." Noble aspirations.
But the fact is, being user-centered is harder than it sounds. It takes consensus, resources, patience. Sometimes despite our best intentions, it's tempting to take shortcuts. Here are some popular fallbacks to UCD to watch out for:
Executive-Centered Design - "Over the weekend, [top-level exec] tried to [do some obscure thing in the app] and he hated it. We have to make it better - QUICK!"
System-Centered Design - "We can't show [most important thing to the user] on this screen. It's in a different database and making it work will cost [ridiculously high, off-the-cuff estimate]."
Timeline Scope-Centered Design - "We have to launch something by [laughably unrealistic date]! So just tell me what we can do by that date."
Competitor-Centered Design - "Go look at [competitor or other industry disruptor]'s app. They have this [cool-looking doohickey]. Their users love it! Can we do something like that?"
Feature-Centered Design - "As we begin to build our app, let's make a list of all things we want it to do."
Cool-Centered Design - "We need to deliver something really cool that users will want to engage with. It needs to have that WOW factor. Make it pop!"
If you begin to hear these phrases, you may be losing focus on your customer. That's cool - it happens to us all. Stay chill and use these magic phrases to get back on track:
"Let's do a quick analysis on how many other users experienced this pain."
"Let's sketch something up and share it with our customers to see what they think."
"Users we've talked to tell us this is a show-stopper."
"What customer needs are we trying to solve? Let's start there and then map our features to their needs."
Keeping your focus where it belongs can a daily struggle, but don't give up. When you finally deliver that simple, elegant solution to your customers' real life problems, it will all be worth it.
