‘Design’ is a broad discipline, it’s about creating something intentionally — it traverses 2D design (flat images used everywhere from electrical engineering to animation), to experiential design (the user’s experience with products and services). You brush up against design every time you use your mobile phone (an example of UX and Product design) or try to navigate the health system (an example of Systems design).

Your customer’s experience is largely determined by whether your business uses human-centred design (HCD) as the basis for the development of new products and services or the improvement of existing ones. We can all think of ones that do and ones that don’t, for example, the indulgent and sensory experience of unboxing an Apple product or the frustration of being on hold for ages when trying to contact your bank/insurer/telco provider by phone.

HCD not only puts the customer (or user) at the centre of your product or service but crucially begins with who they are and their needs - what are the jobs they are trying to do when they buy your product or service? If you don’t know the answer to this, then it’s time to introduce the practise of HCD to your UX, Product and Engineering teams (or any team that interfaces with a customer, be it directly or indirectly). It’s time to walk in your customer’s shoes before you roll out changes to an existing product or service or create a new one.

HCD is a process with core stages — gaining empathy for the customer or user, problem definition, ideation, prototyping and testing (also known as Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver). This may sound linear, but it’s not, for example, if you have sufficient quantitative data and already have a robust understanding of your customer, you can begin with the Define stage or you may find yourself in the Develop stage and realise that you require further customer insights, so you double back to the Discover stage.

The beautiful thing about HCD is that it can help you with simpler business problems, for example, understanding why customers prefer face to face interactions rather than a digital option through to complex social problems, for example, understanding food poverty.

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