I’m a huge advocate of user-centered design approaches and techniques and have been ever since I was introduced to them at The Hiser Group. So the recent article Discount Usability by the guru himself Jacob Nielson I think is timely reminder about some of these user centered design approaches and the value they offer. In the article Jacob reflects on the last 20 years in usability and design and how far it has come. Some quotes from it that I find particularly relevant in my day to day work include:

• “Simple user testing with 5 participants, paper prototyping, and heuristic evaluation offer a cheap, fast, and early focus on usability, as well as many rounds of iterative design.”
• “Discount usability often gives better results than deluxe usability because its methods drive an emphasis on early and rapid iteration with frequent usability input.”
• “Most design teams still don’t believe in paper prototyping, preferring instead to spend considerable time creating elaborate design representations before they start collecting user feedback.”
  I can’t emphasise enough how valuable it will be.