USER CENTERED DESIGN MANAGEMENT:
WHICH METHODS SHOULD BE EMPLOYED AT WHICH STAGES OF NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

User centered product design, although the name suggests otherwise, is a business strategy that affects almost all the activities in new product development process. There is a vast literature on the research and development methods employed for reaching useful, usable products which provides good use experience to their users. The user centered design methods vary from ethnographic field studies to usability tests in laboratory environments. However, not much is found about exactly when a specific method should be employed in a generic product development process. In managing user centered design activities, the timing of a method can be more important than its implementation for the success of the product.

This study aims to explore the suitable methods for each stage in new product development process, with four examples from industry collaboration projects done at Middle East Technical University. Ulrich and Eppinger’s (2000) new product development model is used as a mainframe. The model defines the stages in a generic new product development process as product planning, concept development, system design, detail design, refinement and product ramp-up.  User centered design methods are defined according to their relationship to the stages in this model.

One of the examples is about a product that had high after sales service costs. The problem was mainly the labelling on the interface which caused the users to misinterpret the functions of the product. The method employed was expert evaluation, although effective, was a little late, since they had already ramped up the product, thus, no changes were possible. The producers launched a new, improved series of the product.

Second example is about the benchmarking method of a newly developed product in terms of function selection and interface usability. It is found that although the product had more appealing functions than its competitors, their presentation in the interface was confusing to the users. This could have been an easy problem to solve if only the product was not in the refinement stage of development. The positive aspect was that, they used the results of the study for the next product model.

Third example consists of a product which had a finished graphical design of its display but the functions of the product were not defined clearly. With a finished design, it was not easy to deconstruct the interface layout; it meant that the design department would start from the beginning. The method was re-structuring the product architecture by consulting the expertise of related marketing and sales department and usability experts.

The last example is about the design of a product that enabled operation with single control element in the interface. The project was timely, so it was accomplished fluently. On the other hand, there was a dispute about the concept. Concept definition was done after the design was completed, which caused the whole concept design to become obsolete. 

References:
Ulrich, K.P & Eppinger, S.D. (2000). Product Design and Development. (2nd Ed.) Boston: McGraw Hill