Is User-Centered Design just another word for “usability testing”?
Usability testing is one of the methods used in UCD, but UCD is much more comprehensive. UCD focuses heavily on understanding users and gathering input and feedback from them throughout the development cycle. UCD also calls for a multidisciplinary team to design every part of a product that the user sees, hears, and touches. Organizations that simply test products usually do not optimize ease of use.