People-centered Design

Which People?

We have had user-centered design; and we’ve had human-centred design … why do we need yet another new term – people-centred design?

Because, whereas we used to think we were designing a product or an interface for a user, we now think of experience design. As a consequence we have to recognise that products affect the experiences of many more people than just the user. 

A simple starting point is the distinction between customer experience and user experience, which can be very different from each other. But there are also installer experiencess, customer support experiences, family and friends’ experiences, to name just a few.

Some people might like to distinguish users from stakeholders, but you cannot design an experience for a generic stakeholder – it is essential to understand what their relationship to the product is.

Human-Centered Design is a nice term, but it generally carries the connotation of designing for all humankind, especially in relation to sustainability. The term ‘human’ tends to connote the entirety of all people generically, whereas I think ‘people’ connotes the entirety of all individuals specifically.

One of the best examples of these problems comes in the area of digital services – especially digital money – where a user-centred approach addresses those who choose to use digital money. A human-centred approach might arguably consider a broader approach of the impact of digital money on society as a whole, perhaps addressing the fact that it, in effect privatises money transactions and makes all financial transactions the property of some commercial entity.

A people-centred approach, I would argue, would identify the different kinds of people to be designed for – including those who depend upon physical cash (those without mobile phones, or without bank accounts), or those who do not wish to partake in a tracked economic environment. A people-centred approach does not address all the different groups equally, but it should lead the teams to be explicit about who they are and are not considering in their design process.

The DigiIN project in Finland is a good example of this approach examining the impact of the shift to digital services on various different groups of people that might otherwise be overlooked.

THE SEVEN TENETS OF HUMAN-CENTRED DESIGN

“All design should be human centred, it’s as simple as that. And I mean human-centred, not ‘user-centred’ or ‘user-friendly’, because users are human beings after all. But, more importantly, because being human-centred is not just about your user. Human-centred design takes into account every single human being that your design decisions impact on.

This is a point often missed by new designers, who focus too hard on one defined primary user. There are many other people that will interact with your product – the factory-workers that make it, the courier that delivers it, the technician who installs it, the mechanic who fixes it, even the person who disposes it at the end of its life. All of them might also be your primary user, but many won’t be.

You need to be open to the fact that there might be many other potential users out there that you aren’t aware of yet. “

DAVID TOWNSON – UK DESIGN COUNCIL

Three-ring Binders

Before being engaged on innovation in 3-ring binders, qualitative surveys had found that the snap of the three rings was not a problem for users and we were directed to look for innovation elsewhere.

Zyliss Kitchen Gadgets

Making a new family of kitchen gadgets could not just be about an easy grip … observational research in people’s homes while they were cooking highlighted the role of family and cooking together (with children joining in especially). And, of course, the inevitable need to make clean up fast. Innovations that resulted from these insights included a salad spinner with an integral brake and a potato masher with no enclosed spaces to trap potato.

Experience is infinite

Where does experience start and stop? Few products exist in isolation of a broader context filled with (and interacting with) other people and other products and services.

The importance of empathy

Who needs to understand who? But with whom? Most work focuses on our empathy with our customers or users, but it may often be the case that we need empathy with our colleagues even more.

A map of whose journey?

Journey maps, experience roadmaps, customer experience journeys are all common tools nowadays, but a key question that needs to be asked is "whose journey are we mapping?" and is that the right person?

ROLM: The digital PBX

Long before any of us were seriously thinking about experience design a group in Silicon Valley were creating a phenomenally successful product based on all the good ideas that hadn't been invented yet.

Treating Cancer

Treating cancer is a long, slow process in which many different professionals (and non-professionals) are involved. The patient might seem like the obvious 'user' but they don't directly control many (any?) of the products used in their treatment. Doctors, medical physicists, receptionists, radiographers, radiation therapists, chemotherapy nurses are just a few of the people who will touch the various hardware and software products involved.

Customer Encounters

Finding new ways to encounter customers is a vital part of a healthy people centred design culture.

Harmony Design Culture

As well as the usual processes of research and design, the team at Harmony developed a set of rules in which all the team were required to have regular customer encounters – from senior leadership down to junior engineers.

Usability considered harmful …?

Not necessarily the same as gathering input from users, ‘usability’ often implies a rigorous testing of a product or interface (in A-B testing or similar). But such rigorous, data-driven processes can arguably be quite detrimental to successful product or service design.

What is the role for data and AI?

Making things better?

Design?

Business and technology

Experience is infinite