The Tenets of User Centered Design

In development there are gifts and there are transformational gifts.  In software development there are releases and there are transformational releases. We approach the software development process with a focus first on the user and have deployed our High Touch experience and Constituent Care functionality with a specific eye towards the users and their roles in our clients organizations.

But what is the methodology and approach of User Centered Design?

User Centered Design allows software development companies to quickly surface stakeholder and user needs, gather meaningful user feedback, and use that as the foundation to provide user interface and visual design recommendations for the greatest utility.  The five-step process of User Centered Design is outlined below:

1. User Needs Analysis
2. User Experience Design
3. User Feedback Session
4. Visual Design
5. Software Development

When we designed our High Touch platform we engaged a team of clients including American Lung Association, American Rivers, Amnesty International, Human Rights Campaign, Doctors Without Borders, Humane Society of the United States, Oxfam America, PETA Foundation, and WETA alongside industry experts to help unpack the end-to-end journey of successful major donor and planned giving fundraising from prospect identification, research, cultivation, and stewardship.

LeeAnne Siart, Director of Planned Gifts of PETA Foundation participated in the meetings and shared her thoughts about the process, “Throughout the input sessions, the design team actively engaged us to be sure they thoroughly understood our user needs. The new design concepts have impressively put that input into action. It has not just visual appeal but it will also make tracking our donor cultivation and stewardship process smoother.”

We continually design new features in Revolution CRM within a user-centered framework because our end goal is to help our user community to become better, smarter and faster.