You may have come across these terms in the trade press.
User-centered design (UCD) and human-centered design (HCD).
They sound familiar, don't they?
The terms often appear in articles devoted to user experience, usability, design thinking, and interface design and serve as a sort of interpretation of design "philosophy" and methodology. Frequently, they're the disguise for practical and specific design guidelines, patterns, and recommendations.
Are we dealing with the same thing when writing about user-centered design and human-centered design? Are these terms synonymous? Or are they complementary?
Is distinguishing human-centered design and user-centered design useful? Isn't it a multiplication of terms?
Aren't we creating concepts that sound intriguing but don't change much in the daily work of UI/UX designers and mobile and web application user experience (UX)?
Let's find out!
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What is the difference between the human and the user?
Although the question seems misleading at first glance, it is not. Yes, you need to be a human to be a user.
From this relationship, it's easy to conclude that this is about synonyms used to describe, define, and identify the same designatum.
Is that the case? Well, not really.
When we hear these two terms, intuition tells us that we're dealing with a broader concept (human) and a term relating to a more narrow reality (user).
However, the two are not in opposition, mutually exclusive, or antonyms. They're also not synonyms.
They're complementary from the perspective of user experience, UI design, and interface design.
Generally, both focus on following the design thinking process and the issue of offering solutions as desirable, appropriate, convenient, satisfactory, attractive, and usable as possible.
To both humans and users.
So what's the difference between them? What allows us to distinguish them and consider them valuable tools in daily design practice?
The difference is in attitude and approach (even if they're just subtle differences). When focusing on the purely human aspect of mobile and web applications use, we primarily want to understand emotions.
By empathizing, we want to understand and feel what a human feels while using them.
We want to gain insight into their perspective and point of view, into how they experience the world, respond to reality, and act in it.
By empathizing, we want to know the reasons for human reactions.
Human-centered design (we can also encounter the term "human-centred design" in the ISO description) primarily focuses on complete multidimensional knowledge and understanding of the perspective of an application's users. Its goal is to make the development process more focused on people using digital products or services.
The human-centered design approach is based on iterative solution creation, testing, learning, and product adaptation using user feedback.
To understand and know the user, we first need to understand their actions and reactions. We want to know a more tangible, measurable, and objective "truth" about how they interact with applications.
User-centered design principles (or user-centred design) involve adapting the design, technologies, and functionalities to the users' needs, tendencies, and preferences. They involve designing solutions that fit a specific target user, such as a specific age group, gender, or ethnicity.
And this adaptation begins at the most elementary stages of digital product creation.
In the digital product design process, both perspectives and approaches should be equally useful and complementary ways of understanding needs and expectations.
Understanding the specifics of actions, emotions, habits, and experiences is essential.
As humans, we enter into emotional interactions with applications.
As users, our interactions with digital products are conditioned by our experience, cognitive abilities, and expectations.
And also by our needs, goals, and preferences in achieving them.
How does user-centered design complement human-centered design?
Let's start with user-centered design because this approach is more often described and popular.
The term is almost thirty years old and is associated with Donald Norman, one of the first academics to study and describe usability systematically.
UCD and HCD are the approaches in which continuous research, diagnosis, and taking into account user needs and requirements play an important part at each stage of the design process.
These approaches examine and analyze slightly different aspects and areas of Human-Application, or more generally, Human-Computer Interactions (HCI).
User-centered design and human-centered design are approaches in which iteration plays a key role.
This means they're based on iterating user research, procedures, methods, techniques, variants, and versions to achieve better results.
Of course, the aim is to create a highly usable application.
Iterations are primarily used to understand the following better:
- The context in which a product will be used
- User requirements for a digital product
- Accuracy of identifying, defining, and learning the context and requirements
- Product relevance regarding the context and requirements
A typical process includes:
- Observation aimed at getting to know the problems and limitations users experience in natural situations
- Definition of design guidelines and an indication of appropriate solutions
- Prototype creation
- Prototype testing
The observation allows us to create usage scenarios for future applications, and the guidelines will enable us to establish the framework for solution searching.
An application prototype allows us to test individual solutions involving users.
Most importantly, combining UCD and HCD approaches as part of the process enables us to consider the entire user experience (UX) spectrum.
Human-centered design, as a framework introducing a broader context into the design process, allows us to understand the human aspect of future users.
The human-centered approach helps us understand the following aspects of users:
- Uniqueness, difference, and specificity, but also the repetitiveness of their perspective
- Their way of thinking and conceptualizing the world
- Their desires and values that guide them and that are close to them
- Their functioning in the cognitive, emotional, and psychosocial aspects
Human-centered design also has predictive values. It enables us to understand the impact of products on the users.
It allows us to view application use from the perspectives of their performance, usability, stability, availability, and the possible relationships between humans, devices, and software.
In other words, human-centered design and user-centered design allow us to understand the following:
- Who will use our digital product?
- How will they use it?
- Why and for what purpose will they use it?
- With what result will they use it?
- In what situations will they use it?
- With what emotions will they use it?
- With what attitude will they use it?
- With what capabilities and limitations will they use it?
Both approaches improve the understanding of the following:
- Users, also in their typically human aspect
- Tasks
- Contexts
- Experiences
- Processes
- Goals
- Limitations, reluctance, barriers, and moments when the flow isn't smooth
Starting with a purely human perspective and based on empathy and the desire to understand and share a common perspective, the designers are more likely to discover the required solutions faster and more effectively.
It's worth remembering that there are many ways to solve problems, but only a few of them are perceived by humans and users as the most:
- Obvious
- Accurate
- Effective
- Convenient
- Desirable and expected
- Optimal
- Easy or at least undemanding
- Economical (in the sense of the economization of cognitive processes).
Combining human-centered design and user-centered design allows us to prevent problems.
It's a preventive measure in the strict sense of the word.
At the same time, it enables us to predict more effectively and use previous experience (including design failures).
In short, it helps us learn while minimizing the cost generated by an error not foreseen in the design process.
Human-centered design allows us to get to know and define the specific nature of human-machine and human-system relationships.
This applies to the course and results of interactions between the users and:
- Devices
- Systems
- Technologies.
For example, the tactility of mobile devices is a separate set of measures, goals, problems, errors, interaction costs, or human factors that result from them.
HCD allows us to reduce the number of errors and make interactions with a mobile phone, tablet, or smartwatch smoother and hassle-free.
It enables us to understand the capabilities of a typical user and the effect of the designed operations, modes of operation, appearance, and context on the course of interactions.
Human-centered design reminds us that the user should perceive a mobile or web application as:
- Familiar and predictable
- Consistent
- Controlled
- Effective
- Communicative
- Customized
- Helpful
- Convenient
- Understanding
- Predictive.
Doesn't it sound like a recipe for the understanding of human nature? It sure does!
However, understanding the human/user duo in its typically human aspect is one of many advantages of combining human-centered design and user-centered design.
What are the benefits of HCD and UCD in the design process?
Perhaps the most important result of the combined use of both approaches is ensuring the maximum possible:
- Impartiality
- Objectivity
- Reliability
- Effectiveness of finding desirable solutions
- Digital product improvement
- Relevance for the users' needs and requirements
- Reduction of the time needed to obtain a ready product as error-free as possible
- Process rationalization
- Increasing the accuracy of design decisions.
The use of the HCD & UCD approach pair allows us also to align our business goals with the users' goals and to balance their importance.
Harmonization, synchronization, and fine-tuning of these two often conflicting goals and perspectives offer considerable business benefits.
Human-centered design vs. User-centered design. Summary
- User-centered design and human-centered design are complementary but not synonymous terms.
- User-centered design and human-centered design focus on offering solutions that are as desirable, appropriate, convenient, satisfactory, attractive, and usable as possible for humans and users.
- When focusing on the purely human aspect of application use, we primarily try to understand emotions.
- Human-centered design is based on iteratively creating solutions, testing them, and adapting digital products to the emotional needs of those who will use them.
- To understand and know the user, we first need to understand their actions and reactions.
- User-centered design involves adapting the design, technologies, and functionalities to the more or less conscious needs, tendencies, experiences, and preferences acquired using similar applications.
- Both approaches are equally valuable and complementary to understanding and defining needs and expectations in the digital product design process.
- As humans, we enter into emotional interactions with applications. Applications aren't emotionally indifferent to us.
- As users, our interactions with digital products are conditioned by our experience, cognitive abilities, expectations, needs, goals, and preferences in achieving them. Both modes are equivalent.
- User-centered design and human-centered design are approaches in which continuous research, diagnosis, and taking into account user needs and requirements at each stage of the design process play an essential part.
- User-centered design and human-centered design are approaches in which iteration plays a key role.
- Iterations serve a better understanding of the context, requirements, and product relevance regarding context and requirements.
- Both approaches increase the probability of understanding the users, tasks, contexts, experiences, processes, goals, limitations, reluctance, barriers, frictions, and moments when the flow is not smooth.
- Combining human-centered design and user-centered design enables us to prevent problems and errors and minimize costs.
- Using both approaches allows us to achieve the maximum possible impartiality, objectivity, reliability, and effectiveness of UX research and designs based on them.
- It allows us to combine business and user goals harmoniously.
