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UX/UI Design vocabulary · UX/UI Basics and Process

User-centered design

Meaning in UX/UI design, with examples

nounCore term

In UX/UI design, user-centered design means: An approach that puts users' needs, goals and limits at the centre of every stage of design, using research and testing with real people to guide decisions.

In Turkish: kullanıcı odaklı tasarım, kullanıcı merkezli tasarım

How it is used

Shortened to UCD. Appears in job ads, process documents and case studies. The international standard ISO 9241-210 uses the closely related term 'human-centred design'. People say a decision is, or isn't, user-centered.

Example sentences

  1. Our process follows user-centered design: we research, design, test and repeat.

  2. Adding a feature just because the CEO likes it isn't exactly user-centered design.

Common collocations

  • user-centered design process
  • user-centered approach
  • principles of user-centered design
  • user researchThe study of people who use or might use a product, through interviews, observation, surveys and tests, to understand their needs, behaviour and problems.
  • usability testingA research method in which real users try to complete tasks with a product or prototype while a researcher watches, to find out where they struggle.
  • design thinkingA problem-solving approach that starts with understanding people's needs and moves through defining the problem, generating ideas, prototyping and testing.
  • iterateTo improve a design in repeated rounds: make a version, test or review it, learn from the results, then change it and repeat.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: UX/UI Basics and Process

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