What is Human Centred Design?

Step 1: The definition of HCD!

As HBS Online says, Human-centred design is a problem-solving technique that puts real people at the centre of the development process, enabling you to create products and services that resonate and are tailored to your audience's needs. Have you ever tried to explain your phone to an older person? It's similar to that in a sense.

As designers, we use HCD to put ourselves in the users shoes. We need to understand the processes a user goes through and include them in the actual design process itself.

Step 2: The phases of Human Centred Design

1. Empathize - Designers will seek to understand the needs of the user and experiences via research, feedback and observations.
2. Define - This step helps set up the process. After learning all you can to complete something, define the issue by focusing on what you want to accomplish. As a HCD designer, you should always answer the question why. It's vital that you define your issue, the correct way.
3. Ideate - In the 3rd phase, designers brainstorm as many ideas as possible for solutions to their issue. This is normally done through sketching or prototyping. It's best to ideate in a team rather than by yourself.
4. Prototype - It's pretty common for designers to create prototypes of their products so they can test it out and make sure it works as planned. The idea is that you create something you can test with people who face your issue. Prototypes are sometimes considered a work in progress, so its good to have multiple of them for the best outcome.
5. Test and Implement - Now, designers gather necessary feedback and suggestions on their prototype and reobserve their issue. This is the time where all your hard work pays of, you release the final design and launch your product or service. After release, you shouldn't stop maintaining it and asking for feedback, the more the better!

Step 3: Why is HCD so important?

Human Centred Design (HCD) is vital to any creation, it is solely important as you're creating for the user so you need to meet their specific needs, motivations and concerns. You create something to better an experience, not for much else. There are even more reasons that make HCD so significant, some of which include:

1. By focusing on your user, it'll result in products, services or systems that better meet the user needs, and is overall more effective and efficient.
2. HCD can increase how satisfied your customers are with your product, it makes them more intuitive, engaging and enjoyable, leading to more satisfaction and user-loyalty.
3. It even improves accessibility! It ensures that your product/service is accessible to a wide range of users, including those who speak different languages or have disabilities.
4. By following the HCD process, you can even cut out on some of the costs. By involving users in the design process, you can avoid spending on redesigns, reduce the dev time and minimize the risk of a mistake that will ruin your chances.

Step 4: Making the explanation interactive!

We understand that some of our viewers prefer to have more interactive content, so you can find a video that covers some of the key elements of Human Centred Design. We have also attached a diagram that may be of some help. Check out the video!