An introduction to and breakdown of HCD & Design Thinking with a reconciliation of the two methodologies as well as a note about the terms human versus user-centered design
Design Thinking, popularized by Stanford’s D.School, is a process that you go through to create solutions — Whether that’s a product, process, or service — that will actually be adopted by people.
Human Centered Design, popularized by IDEO, is a mindset that overlays design thinking to ensure that the products are actually relevant and beneficial— in the long run — for the people they are intended to serve.
Thankfully, Design Thinking and Human Centered Design are complementary tools that can be used together to create lasting results. Let’s figure out how.
Agenda # W H A T W E L L C O V E R T O D A Y What does design thinking entail? What does a human Centered Design Approach look like? Can design thinking and a HCD approach live together? 01 02 03
Design thinking relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, to construct ideas that have emotional meaning as well as functionality, to express ourselves in media other than words or symbols. “ — Tim Brown, Change by Design
DESIGN THINKING IS… • A framework that allows you to redefine problems to seek solutions that may not have been seen • An iterative process that understands and empathizes with the user • A process that challenges and tests the assumptions product or service managers/designers may have • A non-linear process
HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN IS… • Focused on developing solutions to problems by putting the human perspective into all parts of the problem solving process • An “approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibility of technology, and the requirements for business success” — Tim Brown
Key differences • Design thinking looks at the bigger picture — it focuses on innovation and creating products or services that solve problems • Human centered design looks at the details — it is a way of improving the usability and the user experience of a particular product or service
Empathize • The centerpiece of human-centered design process • Understanding the experience of the user • Done through observation, interaction and immersing yourself in their experiences # F I R S T
Define • All about bringing clarity to the design space • Synthesis of the findings from the ‘Empathize’ stage • Form a user point of view that you will address with your design # S E C O N D
Ideate • Idea generation • Exploring a wide variety of possible solutions • Generating a large quantity of diverse possible solutions, allowing you to step beyond the obvious and explore a range of ideas # T H I R D
Prototype • A prototype can be anything that a user can interact with • Transforming your ideas into a physical form to experience, interact and then take them to testing • Prototypes can vary in fidelity from sketched paper prototypes to high fidelity coded prototypes # F O U R T H
Test • Testing the prototype with users to solicit feedback to guide iterations • Another opportunity to gain empathy for the people you are designing for • Testing leads back to “Ideate” stage # F I F T H
Iterate • Fundamental to good design • Both by cycling through the steps multiple times, and also within a step • As you take multiple cycles through the design process your scope narrows # R I N S E A N D R E P E A T
And this is how we identify problems and design for humans. (For the purposes of this presentation, I chose to use the term Human Centered design rather than user-centered design because I wanted to keep it general and broad. But if we were considering a specific target audience, then I would’ve called it UCD.)
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