Is User-Centered Design the Future of Software?
Went to another interesting talk this week, sponsored by the usability excellence group at Microsoft. This presentation was by Eric Schaffer, CEO of a company called Human Factors International a leading (or perhaps the leading) usability research company. Eric, who identifies himself as PhD, CUA, CPE, was there to tell Microsoft that the future of computing was human-centered design (and no, I have no idea what CUA or CPE mean. In computing CUA is the Common User Access, and CPE is a telecom term meaning Customer Premises Equipment. I would suspect that in this context CPE means Continuing Professional Education, which is a term from accounting. CUA might be the Catholic University of America, or it might not. Anyway, where was I?). This is not particularly shocking given what his company does, but his argument was pretty convincing. User-centered design means that you consider the needs of the user first (the key word being “first”). The design of software should be obvious to the us
