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Userfication is the process by which material that was posted in one namespace is moved into the user namespace (prefix User:). Generally, material is moved from the article, Wikipedia/project, or template namespace to a subpage of the user that originally posted the material. Such materials (pages) are moved because they are not ready to be seen by the public (articles), used on other pages (templates), or (least common) put out as guidance to the community ("Wikipedia:" or "Help:" prefix pages). But the material is worth keeping because it has potential to be useful at some point — they may just need more work, or more time.
This page contains guidelines for when and how to userfy material. For help on moving pages, see Wikipedia:Moving a page. For help getting a copy of a deleted article, to put into your userspace, see Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to provide copies of deleted articles, or post at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion.
For articles, an alternative to userfication is the draft space. Like userfication, draft space allows editors the opportunity to work on sub-par articles outside of the main article namespace. Draft space, however, may increase the chance of collaboration by placing draft articles in a central location. Another advantage is that incubated articles are automatically "noindexed", meaning they won't show up in search engines.