HUMAN
CENTERED
DESIGN
To achieve digital transformation, I follow a HCD framework to connect all the dots that will build a cohesive UX strategy.
I align product design with the overall business strategy.
Experience Strategy =
Business Strategy + UX Strategy
WHY YOUR BUSINESS
NEEDS HUMAN
CENTERED DESIGN
Bypassing problem research and definition can result in organizations solving the wrong problem, to begin with, especially when dealing with complex and large-scale products or services.
What is
The HCD process is a four-step design framework composed of Discovery, Define, Develop, and Deliver. This process is designed to support an organization's digital transformation because it's not just about technology. It's about the processes that move an organization forward and most importantly, the people that make it all happen.
That's where being human-centered comes in.
How it works
A successful solution goes beyond how its interface looks like. A thorough HCD process will provide a framework to reduce the risk of low adoption or even failure early and will increase the success to execute projects at scale.
Taking a human-centered approach helps mitigate many (but not all) of the risks that can contribute to the project going sideways.
My approach
In any digital transformation, I focus my work on three key ingredients: business processes, technology, and people. Each of these factors weighs fairly the same, although, people are often the ones most disregarded.
By involving end-users as co-designers with user research and usability testing practices from the beginning, I can solve real pain points and challenges that people face in your organization while paving the way for a smoother transition to new ways of working -- integrating UX with Agile.
The process
Popularized by the design firm IDEO, human-centered design involves an iterative problem-solving approach built on four key principles:
Solve the 'right' problem
Before start designing any new solution, product, or service, I have to understand the root problem I'm trying to solve. By understanding the root cause of the problem, sometimes, I can point out symptoms of a much larger issue, like challenges related to ways of working rather than the difficulty to research the users. With the presented HCD process I can find and fix the 'right' problem through research or usability testing.
1
Focus on People
Technological companies tend to be solution-focused. By starting to think about what kind of technology will support the service or ideate how the solution will look and feel without first thinking about our problem-solution fit, it will generate designs full of flaws from the beginning. Throughout the design process, it's critical to consider the people we are designing for and listen to their needs and expectations so we can design a meaningful value proposition for their needs.
2
Consider the entire system
You should not design solutions in a vacuum. Each part of the user experience is interconnected and a person's experience is a combination of factors that lives in 4 different time spans: Before usage, during usage, after usage, and over time. Focusing just on the 'during usage' span to improve the user experience will not solve the entire damage of delivering a poor user experience. Instead, we have to always consider the end-to-end user journey. For that, I take into account how changes will impact other components of the experience, and how to measure its success. This will help guide you toward a future state in which the overall user experience has improved.
3
Iterate & validate design decisions
No designer gets it right the first time. We must test our assumptions because the design process is always full of imperfect or incomplete information as I work to bring human insights into the development lifecycle. The most effective and efficient approach for creating a workable solution includes ideating and prototyping a variety of solutions (in this context, solutions are the different actions and changes that could result from a digital transformation effort), and "testing" or validating them with real people who will ultimately benefit from our value proposition.
4
Double Diamond Design Process
I have had the opportunity to test several HCD processes. By far, the Design Council Double Diamond is my framework of choice. It's the one who presents the best design outcomes. It aims at making sense of the design process and providing guidance and clarity to enable people to tackle design challenges.
Map the landscape
Extract insights
Ideas generation
What to prioritize?
The goal is to get from point A – Business objectives – to point B – Problem-solution Fit.
Problem Discovery
Find a problem worth solving
Minimum viable product
Solution Discovery
Solution Validation
Problem Definition
problem validation
A
B
01
DISCOVER
Diverging
During the first stage, I search for a deep understanding of the problem, and gather insight into the current state, to build and challenge your understanding of the user's pain points, needs, and expectations. I often do this with the support of qualitative and quantitative research.
02
DEFINE
The goal of the second stage is to define and frame the problem by making sense of all findings from the Discovery stage. At this point, I also uncover potential opportunity areas.
Converging
03
DEVELOP
Diverging
Throughout the third stage, I begin exploring possible solutions, generating as many ideas as possible, and evaluating them based on the framed problem.
04
DELIVER
In this last stage, those initial ideas were filtered until the final solution is assessed, replicated, finalized, and delivered.
Converging
