When you talk to both business leaders and designers about human centred design, the same words keep popping up: people, collaboration, agility, value. Essentially, human centred design is the process of creating solutions, services or products with people rather than for them. In a broader context, it is where a framework is put in place to ensure the human perspective is accounted for throughout the entire design process – allowing an organisation to truly understand their customers so they can add value and find solutions to real problems.
“The definition of human centred design is as simple as the art of making things better for people,” says Alexis Baum, consultant designer and educator. “It’s a design practice with the philosophy of putting people first and centre, and really understanding your customer on their own terms. Many of us have experienced the difference between an organisation that can change itself to accommodate the needs of the people it is serving versus trying to change you to suit its systems and processes.”
Baum, who has been working in the human centred design space in Australia and the US for more than a decade, says the reason why human centred design is proving so popular is because it works.
“So many companies are using human centred design to become more innovative, not because it’s some new age thing but because it’s fundamental to creating value to people,” she says. “It’s about co-working, co-making, collaboration. As a result, it will 100 per cent result in a more meaningful and valuable result for the consumer.”
And as our world becomes increasingly digitised, with technology advancing so quickly and exponentially, an organisation’s understanding of people and their specific human needs will have to advance in the same way and at the same rate to keep up.
Cue human centred design.
Baum attributes this as another reason why so many organisations globally are embracing human centred design, and names Kickstarter, the world’s largest crowdfunding platform, as a good example of human centred design in practice.
“Kickstarter is an organisation that embodies putting people first and adjusting themselves to accommodate. Its fundamental premise is ‘We are going to launch new value into the world based on an iterative process’. Essentially, they are getting people to speak their vote via money in order to decide if it’s worth bringing a new product into the world,” Baum says.
“It’s entirely customer centric. If people don’t fund it, it doesn’t happen. And then they know they are going in the wrong direction and can reassess and adjust the product until it meets the customers’ needs. In a way, they are co-making it with their customers. By the very nature of that model, it’s a very human centred design. And it means that once the product is complete, it is bound to succeed.”
While the structure of Kickstarter naturally lends itself to human centred design, the benefits of incorporating this innovative methodology are being recognised by a wide range of sectors, from humanitarian and health to retail and banking.
“Taking a human-centric approach not only offers more value to the customer but also gives them a much richer sense of belonging,” says Roy Shiladitya, Head of IT at ING DIRECT Australia. “We involve the customer in the design process [of products and services] from beginning to end to ensure that what we are designing is providing value. It also gives the customer a sense of ownership and understanding that they are being listened to. When the product is out there, it is something the customers feels they have helped us build – and they have.”
In fact, ING DIRECT has introduced its own innovative process called PACE, which uses human centred design principles. Shiladitya describes it as a structured innovation process that is continuously validated with the customer to ensure that what is created is a product or service that they really want.
He says it’s as much about mindset as a practical framework: “We’ve always made services and products that we think the customer wants, but more and more we are understanding that it’s not about what we think, but what the customer actually wants. That’s the shift in the thinking.
“PACE is based on design thinking and agile methodologies. So instead of spending lots of time building a product that we think the customer wants, we are taking the initiative and experimenting and involving the customer throughout the entire process.
“For example, customer behaviour is a key factor in terms of how we develop user interface. From beginning to end, we are checking back in with the customer to ensure that it is what they want so we can build a product or service that provides value and that they can use in their day-to-day life.”
Baum says that while human centred design is a relatively new practice for many mainstream organisations, the concept has been around for a long time.
“It goes back to when we were just villages and you had the local cobbler or blacksmith or butcher. You had these small businesses who were engaging with their customers on a daily basis. They understood and knew them, and it was not difficult for a butcher to adjust and meet their customers’ needs intuitively – slicing a piece of meat just the way they like it.
“But in today’s world, organisation have thousands of customers, who come from different places and cultures, and they don’t interact with them daily. This brings certain challenges. So while the concept of human centred design has been around for a long time, globally it still feels like early days in the evolution of this space.
“Fundamentally what they are trying to do is overcome the industrial model of an organisation, which is a very commanding and controlled silo style. That’s no longer the case. Today it’s about transforming from that industrial model to a more learning organisation. In the process we’re going back to the origins of human centred design, but in new and clever ways that help up to reach more people than a village butcher ever would.”
Global design group IDEO, whose client portfolio includes Apple, Pepsi and Samsung, is one organisation leading the way in the human centred design space – creating solutions for everything from third-world health and education problems to designing the original mouse for Apple.
IDEO has also released The Field Guide to Human Centred Design. In it, it says: “When you understand the people you’re trying to reach – and then design from their perspective – not only will you arrive at unexpected answers, but you’ll come up with ideas they’ll embrace.”
As such, there is no doubt the human centred design movement will continue to gain traction worldwide as businesses experience the agility and creativity that this process brings, while ultimately creating a more engaging and successful end result for their customers.
