User-Centered Design (UCD) means taking into account the user's motivations, needs, attitudes and behaviors during all phases of application planning and development. Failure to empathize with target users is one of the most common pitfalls in application development.
Agile has deep experience in conducting target audience analysis, performing focus group testing and designing web applications that keep the user at the center of the experience. We also understand that not all projects require an extensive design process and have implemented a wide range of UCD initiatives.
The principles we follow to create user-centered applications include:
- Understand the target audience. It is absolutely essential to understand the mindset, motivations and tasks of users. All of our design decisions for your web applications will stem from this knowledge.
- Keep it simple. Feature bloat is one of the most common mistakes when designing user interfaces. Overwhelming users with features that are rarely used only ensures that few features are used correctly. We prefer to "build simple" by targeting commonly used tasks and making them intuitive. The end result is an interface that is easy and enjoyable for your customers to use.
- Ensure clear navigation. Your users should always know where they are and how to get where they want to go. Creating a sense of place goes a long way towards establishing spatial awareness.
- Act on user feedback. We'll help you monitor feedback from users and learn from it to make continuous improvements. User feedback is one of the most valuable sources of post-launch input.
- Enable accessibility. Although invisible to most users, accessibility is more difficult to implement as an afterthought. "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee