Brought to you by our Guest Blogger, Nomi.
Terms like "user design" and "user-centered" design date back to the 1970's. They have their origins in a progressive, politically forward-thinking movement intent on involving the needs, wants, and preferences of the end user in every step of the design process and often relying on extensive user-testing as a design is being developed.
When the terms were coined, this was radical thinking. Some instances of user design challenged organizational conventions by doing things such as including nurses in the design process of hospital IT systems at a time when medicine was a very gender-divided and hierarchical industry. It was an esoteric and novel approach to design back when it was a designer's market and people were expected to adapt themselves to systems, usually non-optional and work-related, as designed.
But times have changed. Our lives overlap with tools and technology at so many points, with so many options, that if something isn't designed in a way that feels natural and immediately intuitive, if it strikes a dissonant chord with the way we fluidly live, think, and act, it just won't be adopted. It will be guiltlessly ignored like a child's discarded toy. Nowadays, even a completely free information site like Wikipedia has to provide a transparent and pleasing user experience.
As it turns out, Wikipedia is thoroughly committed to the concepts behind user-centered design; in the battle for the soul of the Web, Wikipedia is a standard-bearer for the camp that feels that internet technology's noblest purpose is to make it easy for people to access and disseminate information.
As described on the site, "Wikipedia content is user-designed. Users are given the necessary tools to make their own entries. Wikipedia's underlying wiki software is based on user-centered design: while users are allowed to propose changes or have input on the design, a smaller and more specialized group decide about features and system design." The experience of using Wikipedia seamlessly reflects the populist theory behind its design.
Now, even those with less noble reasons than Wikipedia for dispensing information have to conform to its standard. As a community-built wellspring of knowledge, the site establishes a level of trust that many corporate or branding-driven sites seem to find difficult to match. Who hasn't had the experience of looking for information on a product and finding that Wikipedia does a better job of delivering it than the site or organization that wants to sell you the product? As a source of information, it has set a competitive standard for absolutely any information delivered on the Web. The message for designers looking to convey information on the Web for any purpose at all is simply this: Does the experience your site offers match the ease of use on Wikipedia? Would someone have an easier time finding this info on Wikipedia than they would on your site? If the answer to the first question is "no" and the answer to the second "yes," then you've got some serious work to do.
I like the phrasing you used to describe good design, namely that it should be "natural and immediately intuitive". I think that this concept permeates all forms of marketing media from the web page to the television commercial. My question to you is, do you think that the evolution of user-produced media (youtube, current.tv, etc.) is a positive or negative trend in marketing?
Rob - Thanks for the comment.
The rise of user-produced media has a positive and a negative side. On the positive side, I think that the emergence and mainstreaming of platforms from blogging to podcasting give more people the opportunity to voice their opinions and broadcast their creativity. On the negative side, many professional marketers don't know what to do with this trend. That is, they don't necessarily know how to create forums that encourage their customers to actively participate in the life of the brand, nor do they know exactly what to do with the content that is being created. Ultimately, marketers will adapt. They will learn from the conversation with their customers and they will learn how to have better conversations with them. This will lead to new ideas, new products, and new forms of marketing that we haven't even thought of yet.
I generally agree that it is a positive trend. The closer marketers move toward having legitimate conversations with their consumers, rather than just trying to sell them something, the better off we'll be. And you're right, marketers will put 2 and 2 together soon enough. This trend is simply too massive to ignore.