There is often a lot of complexity perceived around the idea of human centred design (HCD) – diagrams, processes, interviews, surveys, data, synthesis – but the core idea behind it is actually a very simple and graspable one.
Make sure you are thinking of your user’s needs first and foremost when you start making something.
That’s pretty much it.
All the trappings are just tools to help you do this one thing. And even without investing in these additional tools there is high value to considering the idea at this level. And the exciting thing is that this viewpoint can be applied to so many things beyond the design field – including learning and teaching.
So why do people make it seem so complicated? Well, usually the smoke is being generated by those who want you to buy their services, and so they would prefer it be perceived that only they can do it (or train you in how to do it). Granted, like any process, knowing more about it will help you use it better and get better results, but as a practitioner I don’t like when human centred design is projected as something so impenetrable that individuals don’t even feel like they can even experiment with it and try some things on their own.
So what happens when we apply some basic human centred design ideas to learning and teaching?
The value of human centred design in learning and teaching, and what gets in the way
There is huge value in applying the basic ideas of human centred design to learning and teaching:
- it helps to provide other angles to solve existing problems, and an in to some of the most difficult problems facing us (engagement, experience design, paradigm shifts)
- it adds value to time spent – making an endpoint solution that is geared for impact
- it creates confidence that effort invested in a solution will result in a balanced return
The truth is that lot of people are already performing human centred design as part of their learning and teaching practice – by being open to noticing that something that is not working (by being attentive to student reactions), then trying something new and seeing if the student engagement and response is any better. So if we are already doing it why is it worth talking about HCD as a thing? Well, 1. to provide a framework (and perhaps some tools) to augment what people are already doing, and 2. to add weight and help user needs retain their visible priority when other elements try to take the driving seat. So when does this happen? What types of other needs draw attention away from user needs?
- Technical limitations – you will always need to make compromises because of the way that things work, but the problem arises when the reason you are doing something is because it is easy to implement in that way regardless of whether that makes it easier or more difficult to use for the end user.
- Political steering – the boss says make it red when you know the users would prefer green. I guess we are making it red then. Not an easy one, they are a stakeholder and it’s their prerogative to make choices about the thing being created. So ultimately the best you can do is help them understand the user needs that you have discovered, and if they still want to pull rank then maybe it’s best to invest energy elsewhere.
- The needs of the person making the thing – why are so many program features so difficult to find, hidden deep in a dropdown menu? It’s because dropdown menus are easy for developers to implement, and they are very scalable. New feature? Just add a new item to the dropdown list, no need to change the user interface to any great degree. We can write a help guide so that they can find it – problem solved. All too often the reason something is designed a certain way is because that was the easiest thing to build, not because it would be the easiest thing to use.
- Content in the drivers seat – I’ve learnt from many years as a learning designer that content has a way that it tells you that it would like to be presented – this idea first, then this idea, etc – but despite this seemingly logical sequence, this whisper doesn’t mean that this is actually the best way for learners to engage with this material. It is always more valuable to think about how the students are approaching the experience, what they are coming to the table with and what will help them see the connection to their goals the most clearly, rather than simply letting content set the route.
A simple and impactful application of HCD to your learning and teaching practice
Ok, so what’s a super basic way to get started?
Before you make or change something just take 2-5 minutes to consider the following:
What do the students want out of the experience? What do they need to be best able to engage with the matter at hand?
Write some notes and then reflect on what exists or what you had in mind the current design of the learning and teaching experience. Most often when you use this method you are able to quickly identify a few key assumptions that would have driven the work that would not have been human centred. So while using this method you might not be able to provide something that ticks all the boxes from a student desire point of view, you have efficiently stopped yourself at an easy juncture from spending time and energy on something that would have been lacking in endpoint impact and relevance.
And that’s it. Really you could stop there and you have taken the most fundamental human centred step. Nice work.
A bit more
Ok, what if you want or need more – you’d like a more nuanced understanding of your students needs or preferences, or you don’t feel like you know enough to make decisions with a satisfying degree of confidence.
The next part is asking questions, and you could do this by simply asking you students about the experience.
Did you like the way I did it it this week better than the way I did it last week? Any particular reason why?
And this simple input gathering is probably enough to get relevant information to respond to a range of problems that we have as part of a learning and teaching experience. Dismissed.
Next steps
But of course you can go deeper and you can learn more in order to make the application of the methods above more effective. And that’s when you can check out our new collection – Human centred design for learning and teaching.
Or get in contact with the human centred design guild to have a chat about how we can help you solve a problem you might have by understanding learner needs.
This resource collection has been created by the LX.lab Human Centred Design Guild. If you are interested in talking to us about how you can use HCD methods to make decisions as part of learning and teaching, please reach out to us.
Feature image by Sabri Tuzcu.