Customer Driven User Experience Design, Part 2

By Mike Holsather, TSI Web Designer/Developer 

In my previous article, I outlined how the Voice of the Customer is the most critical tool we have when we creating our products and services. If you're a TSI customer, hopefully you’ve taken some time to reach out and provide your input on how we can do a better job meeting your software needs. If you haven’t yet, let me outline our process and how you can play a role in defining the future of the TSI products you work with and rely on.

What is the perfect design strategy to develop user-friendly software? Each phase of a user-centered design life-cycle focuses on gaining a deep understanding of who will be using a product and what their expected outcome is. While there are multiple principles involved in user-centered design methodology, I think the process could be summed up thusly:

• Understand who your users are. 
• Define the tasks and workflows that need to be accomplished. Identify any business requirements or user goals that must be met for the product to be successful.
• Understand what data needs to be displayed and captured.
• Understand what data is most relevant to display for a given task or workflow.
• Understand environmental impacts to the user. Does the working environment impact the user’s ability to interact with the software or device? (i.e. the user is outdoors and perhaps wearing work gloves or they are in a clean-room environment?) 
• Design and development is then refined by iterative user-centered evaluation - ideally through usability testing with actual users.

There are many other aspects to consider but I feel those are the most critical to creating a successful user experience. Every step that is taken throughout a project life-cycle should revolve around the needs of the user. A good design is not just the by-product of our creative ideas but a result of a deep partnerships with customers and listening carefully to what they tell us.

TSI is committed to delivering the best possible user experience for its instruments, software, and services. Help us make your workflow more efficient and increase the ability to deliver the most relevant data to your customers by taking short survey sent to customers this week. You can also contact your channel partner or sales representative to see how you can get involved helping us create the best user experience for the TSI products and services you use.