“Why isn’t technology working better for humans?”
This is the question that is at the centre of product design. The various ways that people have responded to this question have shaped our approaches, habits and mindsets. Our preferences and our biases. All the ways that we answer this question add up to the collective wisdom about how product designers approach what they do.
Imagine the Impossible
Although provocative, the question isn’t just about fixing what is broken. It is also about imagining the possible. But it’s about imagining what’s possible within the bounds of a specific set of constraints: the constraints of humans.
Understand the Human Context
Product design work begins with the need to understand the human context, human capabilities, human expectations and human outcomes. And to bring this understanding into the decision-making process when we design products. This is why designers refer to their work as “human-centred design.” Because this is not just being good at making stuff, but being good at making stuff for people. Human-centred design is the radical idea that we should treat people as people, unique individuals, with uniquely human lives, and not as objects, or data points to be pushed through conversion funnels.
“Technology design is not just being good at making stuff, but being good at making stuff for people”
Human-centred design is about what it really means to put the human at the centre of the creative process. To apply the lens of human experience and human outcomes to every decision that we make, large and small. What should Product Designers, as individuals, bring to this creative process? What personal qualities and traits contribute to creating truly human-centred technology?
“Human-centred design is the radical idea that we should treat people as people, unique individuals, with uniquely human lives, and not as objects, or data points to be pushed through conversion funnels”