“User Centered Design (UCD) is not about answering requirements alone, but also includes defining requirements. When we practice UCD end-to-end, we pretend we know little… because assumptions close us off to new possibilities. We prefer to allow some design research to create a viewpoint and then form a hypothesis as to what we might build. In this regard, we cross into the realm of product managers, producers, program managers, business analysts and the like, trampling toes with gay abandon and meeting resistance all around. Facing confinement to defining the boring old business need (distinct from the user or customer need), these folks would prefer we constrain our UCD work to usability testing on designs meeting the requirements they set out.”
Ideas I wanted to remember and share.