Human Centered Design Fundamentals

Design is all around us. Any organisation can leverage design thinking. Both startups and established businesses must pursue disruptive innovation alongside operational excellence. We don’t need divine powers of insight and creativity to accomplish innovative breakthrough. We can commit ourselves to attitudes and practices that have worked throughout history.

Redesign materialises in many different ways. It may involve tangible products for consumption; actions during a service interaction; visual design and communication elements or environments and systems.

A fundamental law of innovation is that the only certainty is uncertainty. Innovation is therefore a constant effort, one that always has exciting possibilities to offer. Don’t think of creativity as pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Creativity is often building on existing ideas or may involve mingling of different ideas to serve new purposes. In design, creativity should be approached with the end user in mind. This approach enables us to produce a solution of true value, one that they may not have even considered.

We enact this approach by using a scientific method for qualitative understanding, testing and iteration.

1.   Determine the actual user and core human issue

All products and services are inherently based on human needs. A deeply empathic understanding of our user can unlock new ideas that deliver new value.

Cultivate a genuine desire to understand the basis of your users perspectives. In doing this, we are paying little attention to our own identity and belief systems. We are using an intentionally naive inquisitiveness to appreciate their perceptions, values, priorities, experiences, technical understandings and so on.

Watch how your user navigates their environment and makes interpretations. Consider what underlying emotional needs might be governing their actions. Reflect upon what they find valuable in products and services and more importantly, why they find it valuable

2.   Brainstorm and develop one or more product / service concept(s)

During this phase, structure, sequence and hierarchy are unnecessary. Bounce from idea to idea until all ideas are exhausted. Try not to become fixated on the obvious solutions and experiment with different points of view. Perhaps you will approach a challenge with the bold curiosity of a child or as an absolute beginner.

Combine your best ideas to form a product / service concept. You can then build a low or high fidelity prototype based on this concept. Try and speak directly to the unmet needs and underlying emotions that are uncovered through research.

3.   Create a prototype to test your design assumptions

The different components of your design should seamlessly complement each other. Your interaction design concerns the tasks, navigation and flow of the interface. The visual design concerns the overall look and feel and will consider elements such as the layout, fonts and use of color. A prototype is an embodiment of an idea. It might be a physical construction or a digital wireframe mockup.

Using a storyboard prototype for example, users can be taken step by step through a service interaction or the stages of a service. A Wizard of Oz prototype simulates complicated back end programming to evaluate user experience. A person will control the responses that would usually be system generated.

Rapid prototyping enables us to fail, a crucial aspect of innovation. The sooner we find what doesn’t work, the sooner we find out what does work. Prototyping repeatedly allows us to systematically prove or disprove our many design assumptions, as though each one were a hypothesis.

4.   Observe user behaviour to consider preferences, unarticulated needs and underlying emotions

Here we rely on our intuition and our capacity to pay attention to body language. Encourage storytelling by asking open-ended questions. When people give generalised statements with words like “typically” or “usually”, politely prompt them for a specific example.

You may choose to have them describe everything they’re doing and thinking. Or perhaps it’s best to simply watch them and write down everything we notice, helping them only when they get stuck. When offering help, narrate what they’re doing instead of instructing them, “I can see that you’re…” They will be more likely to tell you what they are thinking or trying to do.

Humans have highly sophisticated pattern recognition abilities and we try to derive meaning from just about everything. When analysing prototype feedback, utilise this innate skill.

Look for discrepancies or contradictions in what was discussed. Look for broad themes or reoccurring issues that can be grouped together in diagrams. Consider whether or not any particular personas (user stereotypes) or journey maps can be established. Once we have a genuine understanding of the human issue that we are designing for, we can continue to co-create with our user.

5.   Cycle between design refinements and user testing as often as possible

By placing constraints on time and resources we can propel ourselves into creative action. This occurs through a process of rapid iteration between user feedback and increment design improvements. We may also generate multiple refined product versions at one time, so that testing happens constantly. This process of rapid iteration allows us to build something that offers genuine value to our users, something that can be scaled.