Editing User-centered design (section)

== History ==
The term ''user-centered design'' (UCD) was coined by Rob Kling in 1977<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kling|first=Rob|date=1977|title=The Organizational Context of User-Centered Software Designs|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/249021|journal=MIS Quarterly|volume=1|issue=4|pages=41–52|doi=10.2307/249021|jstor=249021|issn=0276-7783}}</ref> and later adopted in [[Don Norman|Donald A. Norman's]] research laboratory at the [[University of California, San Diego]]. The concept became popular as a result of Norman's 1986 book ''User-Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction''<ref>Norman, D. A. (1986). ''User-Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction''.</ref> and the concept gained further attention and acceptance in Norman's 1988 book ''[[The Design of Everyday Things]]'', in which Norman describes the psychology behind what he deems 'good' and 'bad' design through examples. He exalts the importance of design in our everyday lives and the consequences of errors caused by bad designs.

Norman describes principles for building well-designed products. His recommendations are based on the user's needs, leaving aside what he considers secondary issues like aesthetics. The main highlights of these are:

* Simplifying the structure of the tasks such that the possible actions at any moment are intuitive.
* Making things visible, including the conceptual model of the system, actions, results of actions and feedback.
* Achieving correct mappings between intended results and required actions.
* Embracing and exploiting the constraints of systems.

In a later book, ''[[Emotional Design]]'',<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/CH00_Prolog.pdf|title=Don Norman (2003) Emotional Design, Prolog-- Three Teapots|website=jnd.org|access-date=November 15, 2016|archive-date=February 19, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180219021130/http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/CH00_Prolog.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>{{rp|p.5 onwards}} Norman returns to some of his earlier ideas to elaborate what he had come to find as overly reductive.