User-centered Design - Purpose

Purpose

UCD answers questions about users and their tasks and goals, then uses the findings to make decisions about development and design. UCD of a web site, for instance, seeks to answer the following questions:

  • Who are the users of the document?
  • What are the users’ tasks and goals?
  • What are the users’ experience levels with the document, and documents like it?
  • What functions do the users need from the document?
  • What information might the users need, and in what form do they need it?
  • How do users think the document should work?
  • What are the extreme environments?
  • Is the user multitasking?
  • Does the interface utilize different inputs modes such as touching, spoken, gestures, or orientation?

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Famous quotes containing the word purpose:

    But this fully answered John’s purpose toward Betty, for as she did not understand, she highly admired him; and he concluded by again repeating that learning was a fine thing for a man but ‘twas both useless and blameworthy for a woman either to write or read.
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    In those days, when my hands were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as much entertainment, in fact answered the same purpose as the Iliad.
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    With the breakdown of the traditional institutions which convey values, more of the burdens and responsibility for transmitting values fall upon parental shoulders, and it is getting harder all the time both to embody the virtues we hope to teach our children and to find for ourselves the ideals and values that will give our own lives purpose and direction.
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