Tough question but it’s easy to make things difficult to use. It’s the easy way out in the project when you don’t take sufficient time to design things right the first time. We’ve all used products built like this, at least for a while until they hit the trash can or got forgotten. The first use was the last use.

On the other hand, good design is hard. When you use a well-designed product it just works. It appears simple, it must have been easy to build, right? Wrong. Good design is rarely easy. It’s this design that took more planning and thought. This is the design that usually took more time to build. It’s this design that followed a user-centered process.

At RNA labs, our goal is to create valuable, compelling, and empowering experiences for our customers. As the disciplines of human-computer interaction, usability engineering, information design, and traditional graphic design continue to blend and blur we apply a cross-disciplinary focus in creating innovations grounded in fundamental human needs.

Internet websites, networked media, user interfaces and other software applications are usually developed according to some philosophical reference point–whether conscious or not. This point of reference for development can be data-centered, technology-centered, or user-centered. In any development these three points of view are highly interdependent; the conflict arising when the points of view are out of balance. The data-centered and technology-centered approaches are common — they involve looking at the data flows and technology with the users considered an input/output device. Fundamentally, applications are tools used by these users. Tool design is both a science and an art; with the tool being capable of being used to be effective. For RNA labs, effective design comes from focusing on the needs of the user. We employ a user-centered or human-centered philosophy as a starting point for our applications; an approach that involves users in the development of the product. We spend time listening and watching how users interact with information and applications; translating these observations into requirements and prototypes. Likewise, user observations are a continuous process. Subsequent user observations continue to ensure that we have a good understanding of what users want to do, will do, and how well our designs satisfy their needs. Overall, user analysis pays off quickly in greater certainty for the efficacy of a product, reduced development times, and fewer modification requests down the road.