Abstract

Most definitions of design confirm that the designer’s biggest challenge is to create designs that meet the mutual interests of both users and manufacturers. Although this challenge will remain the core activity of design over the coming years, design assignments become increasingly complex because of several technical and social changes. As a result usability needs are seen as new key-drivers within the design process. Furthermore an increasing amount of products is developed by large multi-disciplinary teams which ask for new organizational qualities of designers. Most existing user-centered design methods (UCDM) however show applicability lacks in a design practice that moves towards multi-disciplinary, user-centered product design. Most UCDM only focus on the efficiency and effectiveness of the design process, but seem to neglect the development team who uses the methods, the influence of the context in which design is performed and the characteristics of the design problem. This paper presents an overview of criteria for a new-generation UCDM that supports the designer in both creating usable design solutions as well as performing high-level design activities. These criteria take the changing design practice into account.