Designing for ease of use is something that most people strive for when creating software products. However, good intentions are not as helpful as knowledge of how usability fits into the product development cycle. The diagram below illustrates different stages of the development process and when different techniques come into play.
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Usable products do not happen by accident. Usable products are created by design. Designing computer products for use requires a development process that incorporates users’ needs at every step. Whenever a product is developed, several important stages are needed. First, you must gather requirements. In other words, you have to know what the product is intended to do before you start building it. Gathering requirements involves defining two things:
• the end-users’ needs that must be met by the product • the company goals that the product must meet Because company goals may come from many operational divisions within your company, it’s important to identify early on the stake-holders in your product, and to ensure that all of them are heard from in the requirements-gathering phase. |  |
Second, define the information architecture. For optimal usability, such definition needs to occur before programming begins. If you follow this sequence, major corrections can be made to the information architecture without causing expensive alterations to large bodies of code.
Third, create a user interface specification. Start by making rudimentary prototypes or mock-ups of important user interface screens, as defined by the information architecture. These "disposable" prototypes will permit you to get feedback about the visual appearance and interaction techniques of the user interface architecture, without committing significant amounts of time and money to a specific approach. Once adequate information has been gathered, write a user interface specification that defines common visual elements and interaction techniques for all areas of the product.
Fourth, prototype more functional examples of the product. Conduct structured usability testing on these to find usability glitches that were not caught earlier in the development process. Findings may necessitate changes to the user interface specification, but fixes required will usually be relatively simple to implement if these development steps have been followed in sequence. This is a good time to solicit additional feedback from your marketing organization; subtle changes in appearance may help the product integrate better with work they’ve done. Repeat testing after each significant redesign to ensure that new problems have not been introduced.
