Restating The Meaning Of UCD And HCD For A New World Of Design Theories

User-centered design (UCD) or human-centered design (HCD) has become a recognized element of design theory that is gaining increasing prominence in many areas or disciplines related to design. The aim of this paper is to introduce the concept of HCD/UCD in the areas of design so that it contributes to the communication and development of theories in this area. This paper presents a content analysis of HCD/UCD academic literature and demonstrates a lack of agreement on the use of the term ‘user’ or ‘human’: a significant variation of meaning of the terms used, definitions with distinct levels of abstraction, high variation of elements and distinct preference by the acronym usage. A selection of definitions was analyzed and summarized into a framework that considers all levels of abstraction and proposes seven HCD/UCD elements. Finally, recommendations about the use of this framework to bring researchers close to a common understanding about HCD/UCD are presented. This work contributes to bring together knowledge about the theme under a single umbrella and to integrate design theories and methods based on the concept of HCD/UCD. This will facilitate the transdisciplinary and will build up all the knowledge acquired in a single body of knowledge.