Product development organizations recognize that usability is an important criterion for successful products. To ensure that your products are usable, your organization must incorporate the principles of user-centered design---a process that relies on a deep understanding of and response to the users of your products, including their needs and goals. This introductory course describes the user-centered design process, from analysis through design and validation, with emphasis on where and how usability testing fits into the development cycle. You’ll gain hands-on experience planning and designing a usability test to validate documents, and you'll get to conduct your usability tests in small groups. Once your test is complete, you will compile and analyze the test results and present findings and recommendations to the class. Upon completion of the course, you will be able to:

• Describe the basic concepts, terminology, and goals of quality, usability, audience and audience analysis
• Plan and conduct at least one analysis for understanding users, including their goals, tasks, and environment
• Describe the relationship between audience analysis data and design decisions
• Describe the basic concepts, terminology, goals, and limitations of usability testing
• Plan and conduct a usability test, compile and analyze the test results, develop recommendations, and report those recommendations

Prerequisite(s): "Developing Technical Information from Plan to Completion" or (with instructor's approval) equivalent course work or experience.