Criticality of Design

At most development companies, user interface design lacks the weightage it should be given under development scenarios, because of the assumption that it is nothing more than a cosmetic embellishment and hence, is not an integral part of the functional aspects of the application. We, at FCS, have a different approach. The two key focus areas of our Human Computer Interaction (HCI) team are building applications that are easy to learn and easy to use. In fact, over the past few years, we've delivered several software solutions with critical design requirements, which clearly fulfill our users' expectations of ergonomics and usability.

User Perspective

  When we observe our users using the key features of our software creation, we are inclined to ask ourselves how it compares to the level of service we'd expect at a good store or restaurant. A good waiter knows when to interrupt you, when to leave you alone, and how to do it all in a courteous and respectful way.

 What usually is the case in development teams is that we forget that the people within our industry are very different from the rest of the world. There's no way for the developer to know how biased he is, without working through some form of customer feedback. At FCS, we spend much time with users throughout the product cycle, repeatedly refreshing the team perspective on what we are building and for whom.

Methodology

Besides a team of developers, we have a dedicated team of graphic designers, visualizers, content writers, technical editors, and usability engineers. The reason creative people are generally able to create wonders with their designs is that they've had more experience or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. A lot of engineers at our usability engineering and design team at FCS have had very diverse experiences. So they have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very spectacular design solutions, and with a broad perspective on the problem.

Approach

Our approach is of creating a user experience and interface that puts the user, rather than the system, at the center of the process. This philosophy incorporates user concerns and advocacy from the beginning of the design process and dictates that the needs of the user be foremost in our design decisions. It is important to us that our developers go through the process of planning and design, to be able to begin coding with a clear goal in mind. Spending a few hours up front on design can mean the difference between delivering an application that customers must have a few months down the road or backtracking to try to convert many hours of coding work into an application that should have been designed in the first place.

 We believe that the best applications are those that users can work with fairly intuitively, without extensive training or documentation. Towards this, we strive for consistency in the way the application looks and in the way that users work with it. Because the user is a creature of habit and expectation, we are aware of the fact that everyone expects our software to behave something like the previous version they used. To ensure consistency in our applications from the user interface perspective, we ensure that they be consistent with colors, fonts, and formatting. We endeavor to make it easy for users to navigate through the application, to make the application equally accessible through the mouse or the keyboard. The visual aspect apart, we implement thorough error handling, and anticipate as many different types of errors as we can and provide error messages that are clear and succinct.

 We are a user advocate company and sole criteria for arriving at a user interface design is that it serves the need of the user.