Abstract:
User-Centered Design has been playing a more and more important role in the software design lifecycle. User interaction designers are facing numerous choices among emerging design techniques. This workshop will focus on a subset of common design techniques used in Autodesk, a leading CAD software company. We will start with an overview of the UCD practice in Autodesk. Then we will move to a design exercise to simulate a design process with 3 sessions – requirement gathering, conceptual design, and design evaluation. The participants will be divided into groups to practice the following user research and design techniques and apply them in the practice: user interview, expert brainstorming, paper prototyping, usability testing, and heuristic evaluation. A group discussion will be held at the end of each practice session to report on the advantages and the challenges of each technique.