Using the UCD to plan your project

Several times over the past month, I have been asked to jump onto a project and give some usability, human factors or just general insight. The common complaint I have coming into these sessions is that the project is not prepared with some of the core answers they'll need to test the hypothesis (the web page, experience, etc).

The first thing you should do is ask yourself, "What problem am I solving for?". A web page is a solution to a question a user has. They have gone through many avenues trying to solve it (search, word of mouth) and ultimately are presented your page as a potential solution. We, as a content provider, must consider that the page we deliver is our hypothesis on what the answer might be. In understanding what the user's problem is, what their question is, we can best attempt to answer it.

The second thing you should do is ask yourself, "How do I know if a user has had their question answered?". This is done through metrics, through user interviews, through a set of measures in which you speculate that a question has been answered. Ultimately, there are limited ways to define satisfaction... though some sites may use something like, "Was this helpful?" "Did this answer your question?", and so on. In the big picture, I have often felt that commentary by end users as well as repeat visits often frame if your solution is in fact meeting the goals.

Finally, the last question you should ask is, "Is there an faster/easier way to answer the question the for the user?". This can be done through usability and heuristic evaluation post launch. You examine the site and look at how the solution is presented and see if there are places were things aren't relevant (contextual unaware advertisement).

This is just a quick post, but I wanted to highlight that if these questions are set at the beginning of the project your chances of success increase. I truly believe in the scientific method when it comes to questions and hypothetical solutions. A user is a question, they represent an impulse or planned need for information. Your web site's job is to address that problem in a way that not only answers the need but does it in the easiest way possible.