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User-centered design and fundamental need

This paper will discuss whether User-Centered Design (UCD) is capable and/or oriented towards satisfying users' fundamental needs. At face value, UCD is the advocate of the user in product development, but do its actual practices and values address what is fundamentally important for users? The question will be addressed by starting with a moral philosophical discussion for separating the concept of 'fundamental needs' from 'survival needs', occasional 'wishes' or instrumental 'necessary conditions'. After being equipped with a satisfactory conception of the fundamental need, two conditions will be formulated to characterize UCD practices that orient towards need satisfaction. Protection conditions will address design criteria, and examine whether UCD practice defends users from harm. Appreciation condition is related to the conception of the user within UCD, and tests UCD agents' tendency to avoid reducing users. The discussion will show that the historical development of UCD from a limited Human-Machine paradigm towards more socially focused and interventionist approaches has influenced on its need satisfying orientation. The protection condition, which relatively well described early UCD activities, i.e. usability engineering, in 1980s and early 1990s, has become too limited to explain the widening scope of interests towards the end of this decade. On the contrary, the appreciation condition, is better met by the present holistic and active user conception than the previous reduced users defined by their roles as computer operators.