Human-Centered Design: How to Focus on People When You Solve Complex Global Challenges

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People-centered design is a practice where designers focus on specific people’s needs, taking the time to learn from particular populations. “People-centered” is a human-centered design principle. Designers can co-create proper solutions when they live among their target groups, tap their insights and find real issues.
“When you design, you have to understand what the capabilities are of the people you're designing for.”
— Don Norman, “Grand Old Man of User Experience”
See why people-centered design is vital to finding the best solution to a certain group’s problem.
The approach that I apply to design has evolved over a considerable amount of time. And the name that I use to describe it has also been evolving. But the reason for that is because I'm also changing what it is that we approach as designers. So, in the very beginning, when I first started becoming a designer – which is the 1980s – I was concerned about the early adoption of computer systems
which were really almost impossible for anybody to understand; even the experts who designed them were making errors in using them. And there's a famous case where the early Unix systems had a text editor that was called "Ed" – for "Editor". You could type away and type your program or your text, whatever you're doing, and spend several hours typing it, and you have this wonderful document. And then you — "Ah, I'm finished!"; then you turn off the machine and go home.
And you come back the next morning to continue and... It wasn't there. Well, why wasn't it there? Because you didn't *save* it. And, well, you mean... The system doesn't bother to tell you when you try to turn it off that "Hey, do you want to save the information?" It was little things like that that were so frustrating. In the early days, what we did is we tried to study the people who used these complex systems. And it was not just computer systems. I actually started off studying
nuclear power systems – some of the nuclear power accidents where the control rooms were so badly designed that if you wanted to cause an error, you could not have done a better job in designing something to cause errors. And then *aviation safety* where lives were at stake – many lives were at stake. And there were a huge amount of research and work done, and that was a really good place to work. I worked with the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration – NASA. Most people think of NASA as shooting rockets up into space,
but they forget the first two letters – "NA" – are "aeronautics". And so, NASA is the world's leader often in aviation safety. And that's where I started. So, we were looking, though, at the *users* of these systems, and so we called them "users". And I was at the University of California, San Diego at the time. And my research group, Stephen Draper and I edited a book that we called "User Centered System Design".
And, of course, the initials of "User Centered System Design" is the name of my university: UCSD. But we emphasized, first of all, focusing on the users – the people – and, second of all, that it was a system. The system stuff, though, kind of got dropped. And we decided we didn't really like the focus on users. Why are we calling you "a user"? You're a *person*. Why don't we call you "a person"?
And so, we started to call it *human-centered design*. And many people ask me what the difference is between user-centered design and people-centered design. And all I can say is it's the same thing – it's just a little bit later in time. Well human-centered design – and sometimes I even call it "people-centered design" – because I don't call you "a human"; I call you "a person" – has evolved to having four major principles – namely, - Focus on the people. - Make sure you solve the right underlying problem.
- Think of everything as a system. And - Do iterative work. Because we're never going to get it right; people are far more complex, and societies are even more complex than individual people. So, we have to experiment, do a test, modify, and continually improve. So, that's the basis of all of these. Now, I've come to start the term *humanity-centered design*.
And why is that? Well, focusing upon the individuals is often not quite right. You have to focus upon the groups of people, the societal issues. You have to focus upon a larger set of things. When you do a system analysis, that's what happens. And so, that's why I've decided I will start calling a lot of what I do *humanity-centered design*. But I still consider all of these to be one similar approach.
And, in fact, some people just call it "design thinking". Design thinking has other attributes. For example, when I say we have four major principles, I don't say anything about how we actually get the clever new idea that's the breakthrough. How do I actually do the thinking and the creative work? And so, a lot of the emphasis in the design thinking world are the techniques and methods that we use to come up with novel, important
and robust and doable solutions. So, but all of these have to come together. So, in the design world, we must have many, many different methods and many different techniques and many different approaches. But what unites all of us in the field that I am talking about is the focus upon people, society, humanity.
Airplane Cockpit by Riik@mctr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/riikkeary/24184808394/
Cognitive Science building at UC San Diego. by AndyrooP (CC-BY-SA-4.0)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cognitive_Science.jpg
Pseudo-commands to illustrate how line-by-line text editing works. by Charlie42 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_(text_editor)#/media/File:Ed_lines.jpg
Cognitive science and usability engineering expert Don Norman saw the need to evolve away from user-centered design to give designers a more humanized view of their responsibilities to the people they design for. Human-centered design represents the shift towards that, on the road to humanity-centered design, which is the ultimate challenge for us as designers in helping the people we design for improve their lives. People-centered design is a refined term for human-centered design, comprising of four principles: People-centered, Solve the right problem, Everything is a system and Small & simple interventions.
© Daniel Skrok and Interaction Design Foundation, CC-BY-SA 3.0
People-centeredness is a way to design for people in unfamiliar settings. The traditional approach to designing for “foreign” groups is a Western-centric one. Indeed, the West has access to the most advanced technologies and possesses vast economic resources to deliver intricately grand solutions. However, with that comes a problem. Western-based (or -oriented) designers tend not to understand the people they want to help, since they rarely spend longer than several weeks with them in their location. And because design teams tend to rush to a solution with only a Western perspective on problems, they run into difficulties by failing to do one or more of the following:
● Appreciate that the people in the areas they have entered often already have a solid understanding of what they need.
● Understand what these people really need and strive for, and what their environment lets them do.
● See past the illusion of big fixes that “should work” on paper (but fail when implemented). Large-scale interventions can prove disastrous because:
The people and their governing entities get frustrated at not having effective results fast enough, and politics get in the way.
The sheer expense of large-scale projects causes problems, particularly through the waste from a failed solution.
The local populations can’t understand or maintain the solution. For example, there’s no point in installing sophisticated infrastructures if the local people don’t have the resources to repair them.
The time a large-scale intervention takes means that the problem itself can change, or newer problems arise.
It’s easy to overlook the fact that local populations very often know the nature of their issues. The old way of sending anthropologists to “understand” local people often blinds designers to this fact. While people who are experiencing problems may not be able to dig their way out on their own, very often this is not due to a lack of knowledge or even ideas about good solutions.
Here’s how to work your way towards real solutions for real people around the world:
● Spend years in the location. It’s the only way to discover the true nature of the problems in an area and gather invaluable insights.
● Collaborate closely with the local populations. Earn their trust, learn their language and closely study what they show you about the world through their eyes. Many are creative and imaginative, and understand their problems as well as their own capabilities and limitations.
● See everything as a system. Even the most simple-looking problems are usually intricately intertwined. So, aim past the symptoms (although symptoms still need treatment) to get at the root causes in the “big picture.”
● Co-design with your population. Where the community drives things, you’re more likely to do things that the local people accept, and achieve real change. Get these people on board; let them contribute to the research, ideation, prototyping and production processes the solution involves. If they’re invested in the solution like this, they’ll feel ownership and be able to step in to fix things if the solution breaks or fails; or even improve it. Also, small and simple interventions work far better than grandiose, expensive big fixes (which often fail disastrously).
● Keep an open eye on the solutions the population has attempted themselves. Understand what the people intended to do. If these were abandoned, learn why they failed. For example, was it the wrong technology? Did a natural disaster render them useless?
● Remember that “foreign” can mean within your own country, province/state or even city. Regional disparity can mean huge differences in quality of life over just a matter of a few miles.
Overall, an approach to helping other populations achieve better lives and self-sustainability means involving them as co-creators and respecting their dignity and what they have to offer.
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Read this JND article for additional insights about people-centered design.
Read this thought-provoking piece showing many considerations about community-driven design.
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Here's the entire UX literature on People-Centered Design by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:
Take a deep dive into People-Centered Design with our course Design for the 21st Century with Don Norman .
In this course, taught by your instructor, Don Norman, you’ll learn how designers can improve the world, how you can apply human-centered design to solve complex global challenges, and what 21st century skills you’ll need to make a difference in the world. Each lesson will build upon another to expand your knowledge of human-centered design and provide you with practical skills to make a difference in the world.
“The challenge is to use the principles of human-centered design to produce positive results, products that enhance lives and add to our pleasure and enjoyment. The goal is to produce a great product, one that is successful, and that customers love. It can be done.”
— Don Norman
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