Abstract

The evolution of the user interface design process has been driven by a focus on optimizing usability and scalability in response to increasing usage. User-Centered Design (UCD) has gained popularity within the design scope as it places the users at the center of all design decisions, modeling design schemes around their needs. While UCD has proven useful in many practical cases, it has also encountered failures. It has become evident that, despite the original intent of this concept, its application in many cases tends to be subjective, unconstructive, and biased. The impact of problems associated with UCD varies among production teams. Product evaluation using UCD concepts often lacks consensus regarding the criteria for heuristics. Consequently, evaluators frequently need to patch up heuristic schemes to comprehensively assess products. These inconsistencies lead to issues in final products, prompting a re-examination of the interaction process and methodologies for adjustment. This investigation, which is an excerpt from a larger study aimed at developing a minimalistic design model for interaction design, aimed to understand the fundamental references users consider when interacting with machine interfaces. The study involved 63 participants in a simple digital interaction task to capture and ascertain factors influencing decision-making in interaction. The analysis outcomes from this study justify and reaffirm the need to reconsider the organization of User-Centered Design (UCD) processes, emphasizing the importance of ensuring the persistence of the missing factors-environment and task variables-in the design process.

Key words: User centered design, usability design, User interface, interaction design, intuitive design, user interaction.