Aside from helping users accomplish their tasks, user centered design methodologies can create key breakthroughs and competitive advantages.

1. USER CENTERED DESIGN FOR
PRODUCT INNOVATION
Kayla Block
kaylablock.com

2. PSYCHOLOGY OF USER
INTERFACE DESIGN
• How people learn, perceive, reason, remember, and convert
intention into action
•A few examples:
• things that are in close proximity to each other are
perceived as being related to each other
• Learning through repetition
• People are pattern-making creatures

3. BREAKING PATTERNS WILL
TRIP PEOPLE UP

4. EMPATHIC DESIGN FOR
INNOVATION
• Designfor needs that customers don’t necessarily know they
have by using keen observation.
• Product innovation as competitive advantage:
“If I’d have asked people
• Observation
what they wanted, they
• Capturing data
would have said faster
• Reflection and analysis
horses.” - Henry Ford
• Brainstorming
• Prototyping

5. DESIGN FOR INNOVATION
• Use Solution Based Thinking
• Start with the goal
• Ask why?
• Fear, Resistance, and the Devil’s Advocate
• Lateral thinking – move from known ideas to creating new ideas
• Break current thinking patterns
• The a-ha moment

6. KEEN OBSERVATION LEADS
TO NEW BABY BOTTLE
• Design Continuum from
Milan, Italy spent months
watching infants, toddlers,
and young children.
• Infantstry to grasp, so they
narrowed the “waist” of the
bottle to encourage this
behavior.

7. KANO MODEL
• Noriaki Kano - Tokyo University of Science
• Customer Satisfaction Model
• Not all attributes of product performance are equal in the
eyes of the customer

8. KANO MODEL
Attractive
• Customer won’t mind if it’s not there, but will be delighted if it is.
› Excitement attributes – WOW Factor!
› Emotional design
One-Dimensional
• Satisfaction when fulfilled and dissatisfaction when not fulfilled
Must-Be
• Taken for granted. No extra satisfaction if it’s there, but dissatisfaction if it isn’t. Threshold. Basic functionality.
› Car with no steering won’t sell.
Indifferent
• Attributes that don’t lead to satisfaction or dissatisfaction

9. USER CENTERED DESIGN
METHODS
Some User Centered Design Methods Overlap Empathic Design
• Keen observation
• Participatory design
• Usability testing
• Card sorting
• Affinity diagrams
• Ethnographic research
› Look for artifacts
• Persona based design

10. PERSONA BASED DESIGN
Personas
• Archetypal users based on research
• Not elastic
Purpose and Goals
• What does the user need to do?
Pain Points and Fears
Context
• Socioeconomic
• Education
• Surroundings
• lighting levels
• noise
• interruptions

11. SAMPLE PERSONA

12. SCENARIOS BASED DESIGN
Scenarios help drive organic task flows because they are driven by
user desires rather than system requirements
• Scenarios are stories with a setting and one or more personas who have motivations, background,
and experience.
• The scenario describes a sequence of actions that lead to an outcome.
• Helps focus on user goals by using personas
• Forces specifics
• Establish a shared understanding
• Fold into narrative prototypes used for cognitive walkthrough
• Scenarios often get down to the dialog level
• May include environmental factors

13. Kayla Block, M.A.
User Experience Design for Innovation
kaylablock.com