Looking closely at claims for user-centred design

Have just come across Andrew Dillon's post, questioning what is meant by user-centred design. He claims that user-centred design (which he believes focuses on satisfaction) and usability (which he believes focuses on efficiency) need to be de-coupled. Dillon thinks that usability is less relevant to the development of new complex products.

Agreed. With the caveat that usability is important but much later in development, not at the point of concept creation (many people who are good at usability evaluation aren't great a developing new concepts). That's why talking about designing users' experience is, in my view, better than using the blanket term user-centred design.

(Via Putting People First)