Human Centric Design: The Precursor for Branding

Human Centric Design (HCD) is an innovation inspired by people. It is a way of thinking that places people at the center of the design, innovation, and implementation process. The HCD approach to problem solving is iterative, measurable, and results-driven. In the past, a company may have managed the creation of a new product or service by defining a set of requirements. Today, many seek to first understand the actual human wants behind the product or service to develop an overall experience ( Theo Forbath and Kipp Lynch, 2015). HCD is a business strategy to design products and services based on the real life experiences. Today businesses that heavily rely on design and quality is built into the design of products and service packages. Design quality of products and service make the quality of people’s life enhanced, simple, and convenient. It is human-centric innovation that makes the quality of life and the branding of the company.

“In 1894, W.K. Kellogg made a discovery that would forever change what we eat in the morning. Seeking a more digestible breakfast alternative to baked bread for his brother’s hospital patients, the former broom salesman accidentally left a pot of boiled wheat out overnight. The wheat became softened and when he rolled it out and baked it, each grain became a crispy flake. Kellogg tried the technique on corn. Over the course of several years, he perfected the tasty flakes by experimenting with different formulas and testing them with his brother’s patients. He had invented: Corn Flakes”. But Kellogg didn’t stop there. He believed that the entire population — not just hospital patients with special diet restrictions would enjoy the new food, and he carefully positioned and marketed it. He created a recognizable brand and set about continually improving packaging that kept the product fresh. The product went on to sell 175,000 cases in its first year, laying the foundation for the $22.5 billion company.

HCD: Branding of Doing Organization

Human Centric Design of products and services builds the image of an organization as the design itself facilitates user’s lives economical, simple and relaxed. Design has become a way of life and it is the catalyst of making the brand. HCD is recognized to have four attributes that are critically important in making Doing Organizations.

The Brand: Unique design that differ

entiates from the rest. The Value: The worth of all the benefits and rights arising from ownership.

The Quality of all the Interactions: The degree of ecstasy arising from meeting of partners.

The Future Opportunities: Openings or chances created by owning the product or service. The question is whether designers aim at all these four at once. The quality of design is measured in all these fours attributes and it is the challenge for designers to identify and incorporate all in newly designed products and services.

Some believe that branding a product takes a long time However, great designers in the world have already proven that a unique design of a product creates the brand just after it’s launching e. g. ARLO

BLAK.

Design is crucial for image consistency, personality and professionalism. Product design is important to an organization or a brand as it differentiates the brands from others. E.g. it is a known fact that a Levi’s jeans is different from a Killer jean or that Arrow shirts are different from Van Heusen. This is because their product design is different. Experiencing the life of users has become a major source of knowledge for innovation.

Corn Flake of Kellogg is a real life example for human –centric or experience design.

Design Quality

Design quality is the value of a design to customers. This can be achieved by practicing the technique called quality by design. Quality by design is a strategic, systematic approach to get your new products to market faster, easier and for less. In fact, design is the root of all quality including the quality of products, services, experiences, systems and processes. For example, a product with a poor design will be low quality even if quality control and quality assurance succeed in producing the design accurately. The common types of design quality are measured in terms of: functionality, performance, usability, aesthetics, reliability, stability, safety & security, reusability, and communications & packaging.

Design Thinking (DT) and TDF

The five stages of DT: Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test are not meant to be sequential steps to be taken as the design project progresses. Instead, these steps are actioned as a loop when they would facilitate the most learning and value. Performing any one of these activities in isolation misses the critical point of design thinking, which are both a journey and a mindset. Hence, design thinking is actually a process of thinking, doing and finishing ( TDF). DT becomes tangible when it is embodied in the team and is expressed as a new way of “doing.” The experiences that result from a DT process are not superficial when they are combined with TDF; they necessitate changes to be made in supporting business processes, technologies and organizational structures. DT dictates the process of innovation whilst TDF facilitates and brings in ideas to life within a shorter period of time by revisiting the DT process. The author suggests a hybrid of DT and TDF models to make things easier for designers to go for innovation.

Empathise - Concept Generation

Concept is an idea or a thought conceived in the mind. Conceiving is not enough; it has to be composed to produce desirable results in the future. This is the key to growth and profits. Choose a strategic topic to focus on and to learn about. The design thinking starts with an end goal, a desired future, and approaches to how you can make it happen. The topic should be one you find compelling and motivating. Research your topic for insights. Leverage stories to discover insights. What stories are your customers telling about their experiences? What are the hopes, fears and goals that motivate them? What insights can you draw from their problems and aspirations? Define - Business Recipe Design Framing the right problem is the only way to create the right solution. Make sense of research by seeing patterns, themes, and larger relationships between the pieces of information. Uncover the customer insights to reframe problem areas into opportunities. Finally, a statistical formula (a recipe) can be designed to obtain the highest possible outputs from selected few inputs that, strongly correlate with outputs. This process is called “making a Doing Algorithm”.

Ideate – Creating Solutions

During the third stage of the Design Thinking process, TDF designers are ready to start generating ideas. Creativity comes from a blend of individual and group ideation. Give people time to reflect on ideas and to incubate on their own before running a group ideation session. Now that you have some deep insights about your customers or users, generate ideas that will deliver value to your customers. Display your ideas on a wall and look for ideas that have the “wow” power. This will save you from draining everyone’s energy by debating every single idea. Vote for the best options based on criteria such as desirability, technical feasibility, and business viability. The team can then choose one to three ideas to prototype and test.

4. Prototype Design

Prototype is a simulation or sample version of a final product, which, is used for testing prior to the final launch. Combine, expand, and refine ideas in the form of rough models or sketches. Invite users to test out and respond to your prototype. How do they feel about your ideas? What feedback do they have? Their responses will inform whether you move forward or kill your idea before investing in additional resources. The prototypes you have tested, built and launched will have a better chance of succeeding in the marketplace. Testing -Final Design and Process Plans Designers or evaluators rigorously test the complete product using the best solutions identified during the prototyping phase. Once the prototype is tested, a pilot run of the process is conducted. Adjustments are made as needed before the final design is agreed on. Then, design specifications for the new product are considered. Final design consists of detailed drawings and specifications for the new product or service. Process plans include workable instructions and SOPs.

Design thinking is a proven methodology for innovation and it is more productive when it is blended with TDF model. Next few articles will be on the process of design thinking, which is blended with TDF model.

For more info: dg@nibm.lk