User-Centered Design

User-centered design is an important design method to understand as it helps to best provide a means in which users can access and gain information. The process of creating a persona to help you, as a designer, to better keep your target audience in mind is a huge help. By gaining an understanding of your target audience, you can identify their wants and needs. Through this understanding, as a designer, you can better create a piece that will serve your audience to its best ability.

I never truly considered how different the needs are from one individual to another. It's interesting to me the different needs people of the same age can have: one 22 year old might be color blind, another might be a parent, one might be single and another married, one might suffer from a physical disability, while another is a top athlete.

Considering age, race, demographic and other cultural elements that play into an individual's everyday life, and understanding how a design will best serve a particular demographic, helps you to be able to design a stronger design.

User-centered design gives designers the ability to identify a need, specify contextual use, specify requirements, produce design solutions and evaluate the designs in order to best serve their user. This method helps the designer to gain a deeper and stronger appreciation for user.