Human-centred design (or user-centred design)

Putting People First

Human-centred design is based on the simple premise that in order to create and deliver valuable and compelling solutions for people, businesses or governments, designers have to understand experience and apply that understanding to strategy and design.

This often necessitates research, and also means that the research must be focused on the real contexts in which people use the product or service being designed.

This approach guides the systematic and iterative development of desirable, usable, useful and sustainable solutions for governments, businesses and their constituents.

Steps in a human-centred approach

1. Understand people (users) (qualitative and quantitative research, observation of people, experience modelling)
2. Think outside the box (brainstorm, generate scenarios, think across disciplines, prototype quickly)
3. Design with people (participatory design)
4. Assess people’s experience
5. Feed evaluation into another loop of design and further evaluation