{"id":22118,"date":"2020-12-21T09:15:41","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T13:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=22118"},"modified":"2021-01-04T00:18:52","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T04:18:52","slug":"human-centric-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-centric-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Centric Design: The Solution to Bad Design?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is human centric design? What makes this type of design effective?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Human centric design is a design philosophy that can be applied to any industry. It&#8217;s often thought of as a solution to bad designs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about human centric design and how it works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Human Centric Design<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>One solution to this problem is human centric design. Human-centered design is not a subfield like industrial or interaction design. It is a design philosophy that can be applied in any design specialization. <strong>The goal of human-centered design thinking is to flip the traditional design process on its head by focusing on human needs and behaviors <em>first<\/em>, <\/strong>and designing products to fit those needs, rather than designing a product and hoping that users figure out how to use it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s use a simple fork as an example. The traditional design process would most likely begin with a designer thinking, \u201cI\u2019d like to design a new kind of fork.\u201d She would then brainstorm new versions of the fork, create sketches and prototypes of those ideas, and tweak those prototypes until she was happy with the finished product.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of a concrete product idea, a human-centered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/design-thinking-approach\/\">design thinking approach<\/a> would begin with a set of questions: \u201cWhat tools do people use to eat food? What problems do they run into with those tools? How can they be improved?\u201d The designer would then observe different <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/three-types-of-people\/\">types of people<\/a> eating different types of food, conduct interviews with people about their preferred cutlery, and research the history of eating utensils. She would identify the main problems in the current technology and only <em>then<\/em> begin to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-brainstorm-ideas-for-writing\/\">brainstorm ideas<\/a> for how to address those needs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Speed of Technological Development<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Modern technology evolves exponentially faster than ever before. While previous generations may have had one phone per household that was only updated after decades of use, we now have personal cell phones, with new and improved models being released twice a year. In contrast, design practices and principles evolve <em>much<\/em> slower. <strong>This means that technology is outpacing our ability to effectively interact with it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This creates a paradox: Technology simplifies our lives, but the more <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/technology-is-advancing\/\">advanced technology<\/a> becomes, the more difficult it is to learn and operate, which adds complication. We see this when users buy a new, state-of-the-art television, only to be overwhelmed by the endless remote control buttons and ultimately only learning to use one or two features.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is human centric design? What makes this type of design effective? Human centric design is a design philosophy that can be applied to any industry. It&#8217;s often thought of as a solution to bad designs. Read more about human centric design and how it works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,34,9],"tags":[179],"class_list":["post-22118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-communication","category-psychology","tag-the-design-of-everyday-things","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Human Centric Design: The Solution to Bad Design? - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What is human centric design? This type of design is often used as a solution for bad design because it puts peoples&#039; needs first.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-centric-design\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Human Centric Design: The Solution to Bad Design?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What is human centric design? This type of design is often used as a solution for bad design because it puts peoples&#039; needs first.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-centric-design\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-21T13:15:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-01-04T04:18:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/joshua-foer-moonwalking-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Carrie Cabral\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-centric-design\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-centric-design\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Carrie Cabral\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/2ababb7c63a94ff5d2190f71dc417d56\"},\"headline\":\"Human Centric Design: The Solution to Bad Design?\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-21T13:15:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-01-04T04:18:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-centric-design\/\"},\"wordCount\":417,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-centric-design\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/joshua-foer-moonwalking-scaled.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"The Design of Everyday Things\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Business\",\"Communication\",\"Psychology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-centric-design\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-centric-design\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-centric-design\/\",\"name\":\"Human Centric Design: The Solution to Bad Design? - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-centric-design\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-centric-design\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/joshua-foer-moonwalking-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-21T13:15:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-01-04T04:18:52+00:00\",\"description\":\"What is human centric design? 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