Key Idea: UCD involves users at ALL stages, in a five-stage loop: context → requirements → solutions → evaluate → iterate. The team is multidisciplinary because the user, the task and the environment need different specialists. Six research methods. Watching shows what users do; asking reports what they say. A persona is built from data and must change a decision, or it was decoration.
Paper 1 — multiple choice
- Classify a requirement as need, want or limitation
- Put the five UCD stages in order
- Match a discipline to user, task or environment
- Pick the research method that suits a stated purpose
Paper 2 — analysing a product
- Apply the five stages to a named product
- Justify two research methods for a stated problem
- Explain how a persona and scenario guide development
- Evaluate a single persona for a diverse market
Carried into the design project
- Criterion A is 9 of the 33 IA marks — the persona and the storyboard
- Your own task analysis of a real user
- The research that justifies every later decision
Half the marks in this topic depend on using the right word for the right thing. These four are confused with each other constantly.
| Term | What it is | What it gives the designer |
|---|---|---|
| Primary persona | One named user, built from research, standing for a population | A shared reference the team can argue with, and constraints that force decisions |
| Scenario | That persona performing a task in a specific situation | The time, place and conditions a persona alone does not surface |
| Population stereotype | An expectation a whole population already shares | A product that works with no learning — or errors, if you design against it |
| Demographics | The measurable make-up of the population: age, income, location | Whether the persona is representative of anyone real |
Watching tells you what users do. Asking tells you what they say. Observe to find the problem; survey to find out how common it is. The strongest research always uses one of each.
The six methods by reach against depth. Choose by what you need to find out, not by what is easiest to run.
🔒 Interactive diagram
Explore the labelled diagram, charts and maps for this topic in study mode.
| Stage | What happens | The common error |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Specify the context | Who, what task, where — established by looking | Describing the user from a desk |
| 2 Specify requirements | Turn context into targets the design must meet | Writing requirements before the context is known |
| 3 Produce solutions | Cheap, early versions users can react to | Showing users only a finished prototype |
| 4 Evaluate | Real users, real task, failures recorded | Asking whether users liked it |
| 5 Iterate | Feed failures back — often to stage 1 | Treating the process as a line that ends at 4 |
Important: Naming a user characteristic with no design decision after it. Naming a research method with no reason it suits the purpose. Writing a persona as a biography — age, job, photograph. Goals, context and constraints are what earn marks.
A loop, not a line. Evaluating often sends you back to the context.
🔒 Interactive diagram
Explore the labelled diagram, charts and maps for this topic in study mode.
A council is replacing the recycling bins used by every household in a city. Explain two user-centred research methods it should use before deciding on the design, and why each is appropriate.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
A start-up developing a fitness tracker for older adults has budget for EITHER a full five-stage UCD process with recruited users OR a much larger marketing launch. Evaluate which it should choose.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Describe what a psychologist, an ergonomist and an anthropologist would each contribute to a team designing a passenger-lift control panel.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Define user-centred design.
Name the five stages in order.
Name the six research methods.
Which methods show what users DO?
What three things must a UCD team understand?
What is the test of a good persona?
Give one disadvantage of UCD.
Exam tips
- Watch to find it, ask to size it. That sentence chooses the method in most questions.
- Follow every user fact with "so the product…". A fact with no decision earns nothing.
- Learn the five stages in order — they are a mark each, and iterate is the one people drop.
- Tie every specialist to the user, the task or the environment.
- A persona needs goals, context and constraints. Age and a photograph are not constraints.
- Evaluate needs strengths, limitations and a judgement.