Introduction

The introduction to the Human-Centered Design book is designed to orient you to the HCD process and social innovation. It outlines various models and strategies for community-based design and provides a comprehensive overview of the phase-wise HCD guidebooks and resources.

What is Human-Centred Design?

The foundation of Human-Centred Design is a first-hand understanding of the human needs and behaviours in the systems being designed. Throughout the process, the design team works to gather evidence that will inform their decision-making later on.

It relies heavily on collaboration from a team, participation from potential end users and stakeholders, a willingness to find the solution through iterative cycles of learning, and a focus on action over planning.

Human-Centred Design in social innovation

Social innovation is about improving the experiencesof the people we serve.

We can achieve this by creating and implementing culturally-relevant, cost-effective solutions that deliver better outcomes over the long-term.

As we build awareness that social systems are actively designed, we continue to see the desire to equip leaders and teams with tools that are used by professional designers in order to creatively solve problems and actively imagine new futures.

Convergence & divergence

As designers move through the design process, they move between divergent thinking (unconstrained, generative work) and convergent thinking (analytical, evaluative work).

This allows designers to question assumptions, reframe problems and generate ideas while also taking action to move ideas forward from concept to reality.

Phases of the design process

These Guidebooks are designed to support a design-based innovation process. This process will be led by local participants, empowering them to identify problems and create solutions in response to concerns identified through the data collected. This process will be open-ended and adaptable to the cultural contexts, resource constraints and opportunities of each unique community.

Your goal in conducting this design process is to collaboratively identify the root causes of challenges in the community in order to design and test solutions that address those root causes and improve the lives of the community.

Understand the problem

Create solutions

Strategise and share

Models for Community- Based Design

Human-Centred Design describes a spectrum of design process models that engage the community as participants in varying degrees of intensity.

Traditional Design & Development practices often do not consult users or community members at all. The technical expert (designer) makes all the decisions about a programme or product. This way of working is not considered Human-Centred Design.

There are different approaches to Human-Centred Design. The different approaches are on a spectrum related to how the community is engaged in the design process.

User-centred design is a practice that disrupts traditional design by encouraging designers to engage with stakeholders to understand their needs and get their feedback on decisions that are made.