What exactly does it mean for a site to be human-centered?
It means that you don’t have to look at the site and wonder what it is supposed to accomplish. What am I supposed do now?
A site that leaves you wondering why hasn’t achieved it’s goal. The action should be so bright you need to wear shades to not know what you’re supposed to do.
What story does a site/product tell? Is it clear? If it isn’t how can you fix it? Sit down and ask yourself what your audience might think.
Do a “What’s in it for me” a.k.a WIIFM analysis to see what your audience thinks your site is. If it fails that test you know you need to rework your site.
Your message isn’t clear.
Not to worry you can fix it. Put yourself in the position of what your potential visitor is looking for and why they are coming to your site. Make up a little story about what you want your visitor to do and that will help inform your design decisions.
I won Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World
on Twitter several months ago. I entered the contest because I was intrigued by the idea of design being able to create sustainable change. Poor design was definitely apparent during the elections in Florida a couple of years ago.
Designers have an essential social responsibility because design is at the core of the world’s largest challenges…and solutions
The tools that are currently widely available allows the average person to apply their design skills. Aviary, a startup in New York, has a suite of tools that gives people just that opportunity. So the excuse that price is a barrier to entry is no longer the case. There are also a lot of open source tools such as InkScape and Gimp to name a few.
If you want to design for fun or work you can ill afford not to think about the impact your work has on yourself and the world. What do you want to say and how loudly you want to say it are all key. You don’t have to reach a million people to make a difference. You just have to influence the behavior of one individual. A big noise might get noticed but doesn’t necessarily have a lasting impact on an individual.
Making a design that’s easier to use or making someone smile with one of my drawings is my small way of changing the world. What’s yours?
Since I usually have to explain what I do I was curious how often people search for the term user-centered design using Google. Well the results using Google Insights for Search were actually rather disturbing. It suggests that interest peaked in 2004 and is steadily declining.
Well despite what big man Google has to say I don’t buy it. People are more interested than ever in making products or services that don’t suck. User-centered design can help do that.
© iStockphoto.com/BartCo
It’s no secret that the financial industry has a serious image problem at the moment. They also don’t have the most user friendly websites either. There are two financial websites that I think are getting it right. They are listening to feedback from their users and making changes that are useful as well. Sometimes those changes meet with resistance but at least they are constantly striving to improve.
The two sites I am talking about are Mint and Smartypig. Mint is a free personal finance, online money management, budgeting, and financial planning software. Smartypig on the other hand helps you save money for specific savings goals, allows friends and family to contribute, gives incentive boosts.
Mint has introduced some really great changes. They have improved the design of the budgeting features within the application. Mint makes financial software easy and fun to use. It can help you focus on your goals and see where your money is going and help you spot trends. I love getting the emails telling me I’ve spent more than I’ve budgeted for coffee. It’s virtual scolding but hey whatever works to get you to manage your money better.
SmartyPig on the other hand is your own virtual piggy bank or as they say “social banking” at it’s best. You can save for a specific goal or have others contribute to your goal as well. Need help saving for baby furniture perhaps? Or your next computer? This is the place to do it.
I used SmartyPig to save for my new sofa. I’ve watched it change since I signed up several months ago. They’ve added a visualizer so you can see how your money grows across your accounts. They are pretty active on Twitter as well. They offer customer service and hold contests. They were on there before it was “hot”. Smartypig also integrates with other financial software sites such as Mint, Geezeo, Wesabe, Rudder, Yodlee and Buxfer.
The bigger corporations should take a cue from these smaller sites. Listen. Innovate. Then innovate some more. It’s not rocket science make a product people like to use and people will use it.
Follow Mint and SmartyPig on Twitter.
Flickr Photos
