People-Centered Engineering
There is a lot of talk, particularly in the wake of the Apple renaissance, of what it means to practice human-centered design. In various workplaces, you'll hear phrases like "people-first design" or "designing for humans", and you'll work alongside people who have studied HCI (human-computer interaction) and who practice UCD (user-centered design) methodologies. This approach of designing products with people in mind has been a refreshing change to the technological landscape. It's great to read about and see firsthand the way that designers and product managers truly to conceptualize a product with their end-user in mind. I'm here to make a similar, but altogether different, case:
Engineering should also be about people.
Engineering, whether software or hardware, mechanical or electrical, chemical or aeronautical, is fundamentally about problem-solving. And problem-solving is fundamentally about finding solutions. And finding solutions is fundamentally about making peoples' lives better, more efficient, and increasing their quality of life.
I've noticed that as problems become
more difficult to solve, the easier it is for
the focus to be about the solution itself,
rather than who the solution is for.
This is true whether you're talking about the problems and industries that "Big Data" startups are addressing, the green-revolution spearheaded by Tesla, or even the newly burgeoning space race to Mars. People are inherently more excited about the journey than the destination...and I believe that it's the wrong way to think about problems.
Tesla is tackling the electric car space because otherwise, our planet may continue to slip into a fossil-fueled oblivion. We should be examining Mars in order to tackle over-population and over-crowding issues, among others. And Big Data startups exist to create more transparent and honest industries from those that have been traditionally closed and opaque.
Truly great engineers aren't primarily about
solving problems, but serving people.
Truly great engineers aren't about solving problems, but serving people. Yes, absolutely: solving problems leads to serving people. My statement above does not mean that problems aren't important, or that the journey to the solution isn't exhilarating or rewarding in any way. It does however mean that the journey to a solution is not the end itself, but rather the means to the end of helping societies, users, or clients.
For those of you who may be a software engineer, aerospace engineer, or any other type of professional problem solver, here are some practical ways that I can think of to be a more people-centered engineer on a day-to-day basis:
- Know just as much about the "who?" as you know about the "what?". Talk to your product, design, and customer service counterparts. Ask them about your end-user, your client, or the consumer. Don't just have knowledge about the problem, have knowledge about the people as well.
- Visit the end-user/client/consumer. When possible, go on a proverbial ride-along. Be involved with customer interviews. If time and policy allow, shadow a customer service representative or salesperson for a day or so. Get to see the problems that real people deal with on a day-to-day basis.
- Don't just think in terms of atoms and bits, but flesh and blood. Just as you would increase the efficiency of an algorithm, a breadboard design, or a flight trajectory, also seek to increase the efficiency of a person's workflow. Think about the steps and effort involved to accomplish a task...then optimize for those real-world data points.
- Measure what matters. Does your company, organization, team have the right metrics in place to quantify not just your product's efficiency, but your product's user's efficiency? Do you mentally convert your product's metrics into your customer's experience? Do you realize that a bug filed against your code means that a real person had a suboptimal experience with your product? That a less than stellar review translates into someone having a stress-filled day? Examine your metrics...but also convert them into units of feeling and emotion.
