What is a Human-centric Design?
People confuse human-centric with user-centric, but both are different. Here we will try to understand what is human-centric design. Human-centric design is a complete website design process right from the beginning till the end for final products. human-centric is a practical approach in which website designers are guided in the right direction to improve efficiency and creates a structure for your workflow that would impact your final products. It is a bit different from a user-centric website design.
Keeping end-users in mind, website designers are usually focused on resolving concrete issues. The concept is more concerned about the usability of products, confusing design elements, and more. The human-centred approach looks at the larger picture, and the entire project is seen as the product existing for humans. It is not viewed in smaller parts with which humans can communicate.
How Efficient are Human-Centric For Website Designs?
Human-centred Website design is a tool for better and more efficient project management. It can be a value addition for all web designers and developers, but the primary purpose is to improve workflows at any cost by adopting specific methods that will make the workflow easy and smooth. Additionally, the approach is a great way to connect to clients, introduce sensible ideas, and make the concepts obtainable.
There are three essential elements in this approach, which are worthy milestones for any project:
- Research
Every project you work on must have some objective. Without any aim for what you are planning to start, you will end up with no results. So first, you must know what you want, why you want and what purpose it will solve. When you answer all three questions, you can move to how you can achieve it. And then, you start your work on the research and development process. Once you know how to achieve it, you will need to create a schedule that will help you deliver the end product.
If you are working on a clients’ project, clients deliver their briefs and discuss their expectations. Then, you can start asking them questions relevant to the project, do thorough research, and offer proposals or ideas to see how they respond.
The ideal way for this part is to create prototypes like mock-ups, sketches, wireframes, and reference to other comparable sites. After you are done with this, you again sit with your clients and get useful feedback. This process will help you shape the product you want.
In this, there is less technological standpoint and more human perspective, helping you achieve desirous results.
- Design
Now you have gathered much information about the project, created a workflow, fixed delivery schedules, and developed prototypes. All these levels have helped you gain valuable insight from users and clients and give some shape to your ideas. Now you can start your design and development work. First, however, ensure you are not working in an isolated environment. Though it is common to work in isolation, it can become a challenge if you are not in touch with other people while working. Work with people around you. Check what others have to say about your work, more importantly, if they are from other departments. This approach will help you create a human-centric product.
- Implementation
A website design and development is an ongoing process. Though many companies might call it quits after the project is delivered, some analyse specific results through vigorous testings before final delivery, and they do not stop there. It is a human-centric approach to first test the final product and then continues with the post-delivery phase, in which the client might come back to you with queries. Ensure you provide them with necessary support as and when they need it. Quitting just after delivery would frustrate your client.
The website design industry is rapidly transforming; hence changes are constant. Even minor modification can impact user behaviour heavily. So, make you once your development and implementation are complete, it is time to start analysing it. Integrate analytics tools to track website performance. Delivering a product successfully is important, but ensuring it performs as per the expectation is even more important. The analytic results are testimony of how much value you have given to their work. This is the way to keep customers happy and satisfied.
Tailpiece
From the above discussions, we have understood how important it is to engage people in the entire development process. You get genuine insights from people with different outlooks, which can help you cater to diverse client base sets with different tastes and interests. Your clients are human, and so are you, so the human-centric website design approach will definitely improve your efficiency and quality. In addition, as a website designing company or a designer, it is always beneficial for you to track your own project progress. If you can do that, you will be able to keep your clients happy.