User, Context, Quality and Design

In the previous post I recorded my thoughts on the need for a framework and methods to assess the value of design in a business context before the design takes its place in real-life.  In my experience, I have found two key components that are central to the assessment of the value of design based on an understanding of user and context. Here it is important to note that the user is the central theme of all holistic human-centred design activities, and the customer is the central theme of business activities. 

A design (of a product or service) must meet the physical, psychological and task requirements of the end-user as well as the customer (the latter actually pays for the perceived value/quality of the design). Many essential and desirable specific value parameters emerge from a detailed analysis of user and context. For example, a user may like to have a good camera in his or her mobile phone but may not require a good music and radio features. However, the same person may require a different set of features in his mobile phone if he switches to a job profile that requires extensive international traveling.  

The context in which a user and product relationship exists is made up of the natural environment, societal practices and culture, individual's work and life patterns, technologies available, and man-made environmental factors.  

Design as a professional discipline provides a way of thinking and developing solutions based on the understanding of the user and context. A design activity with this orientation culminates in defining a set of product values and accompanying specifications. For the marketplace, these values and specifications would appear as the quality characteristics and features of a product. 

I believe that if we target the appropriate user samples and the relevant slices of the contexts for research and product evaluation, it would be possible to produce evidence of the greater possibility of product success in the real marketplace. 

The discipline of ergonomics provides a comprehensive knowledge base and methodology to understand the users and their activities in a given context. Also the approaches of anthropology and ethnography prove to be useful in observing and recording the activities and behaviour of people in their real-life situations. The designer's way of observing people and recording information visually and textually is an open-ended, open-minded, and intuitive way of understanding people and their behaviours. Combined with inputs and insights from engineering, business management, and many other relevant areas, design and design thinking are capable of producing user and context relevant products.

Copyright (c)  Vinai Kumar