What is HCD and how can it help us create better products and services?

Getting started

Human Centred Design (HCD) is an approach to problem-solving that puts people at the centre of the design process.

It is a way of designing products, services, and experiences that meet the needs and desires of the people who will use them.

HCD is for anyone who wants to create better products, services, or experiences.

How to

1. Empathize: Understand the people you are designing for. Conduct research to learn about their needs, desires, and behaviours.
2. Define: Use the insights from your research to define the problem you are trying to solve.
3. Ideate: Brainstorm a wide range of ideas to solve the problem.
4. Prototype: Create low-fidelity prototypes to test your ideas and gather feedback.
5. Test: Test your prototypes with real users to see how well they meet their needs and desires.

Best practices

• Involve users throughout the design process.
• Iterate on your designs based on user feedback.
• Design for inclusivity and accessibility.
• Use a multidisciplinary team to bring diverse perspectives to the design process.

Examples

Let’s say you are designing a new mobile app for a food delivery service.

To use HCD, you would:

• Empathize: Conduct user research to learn about the needs and desires of people who use food delivery services. You might interview people who use food delivery services regularly, observe them using existing apps, and gather feedback from them.
• Define: Use the insights from your research to define the problem you are trying to solve. For example, you might find that people have trouble finding healthy food options on existing food delivery apps.
• Ideate: Brainstorm ideas to solve the problem. You might come up with ideas like a filter for healthy food options, a nutrition tracker, or a personalised meal plan generator.
• Prototype: Create low-fidelity prototypes of your ideas. For example, you might create paper sketches of your filter for healthy food options.
• Test: Test your prototypes with real users to see how well they meet their needs and desires. You might ask users to try out your filter for healthy food options and gather feedback on how well it works for them.