The process of human centered design
starts with the people. It is important to deeply understand the group of
people you are designing for: to learn their mindsets and their needs and to
use that information to create a solution that is tailored to suit them just
right.
Ways to research and understand human
behavior were discussed on the first lecture of the course “Psychology of
Pervasive Computing” in TUT.
Possibly the cheapest and the easiest
way to study human behavior is self-observation and observation about the
behaviour of different kind of groups of people. We think this is a good way to
study human behavior when wanting to know how people react in certain types of
situations.
The most objective
results can be reached with experimental method. This includes for example
psychological tests that are conducted under controlled conditions.
However, it may be hard to create natural-like conditions in a laboratory
and people may act differently than they normally would and this may affect the
results of the experiment.
Interviews are also a
good method to get qualitative information on people’s opinions and to get
ideas from them. On the other hand, with quantitative surveys you can get the
general statistics of certain group’s opinions. There are also other methods,
such as storytelling, focus group workshops and diaries.
These methods are useful to identify
the different groups of people and their behaviour. The crucial point in
human-centered designing is to find the needs of the targeted group of people.
The phases of human centered designing are presented in the following video.
For example, young adults and elderly
people may have very different needs when it comes to technological solutions.
Our generation has practically born with mobile phones and laptops in our
hands, but for older people, it gets harder and harder to keep up with the
development and to adopt new technologies. (This is also a neuro-psychological
phenomenon but let’s not get into that.) So, when designing something, it is
important to know to whom you are actually designing and what are their needs.
An example of successful human-centered
design for a specific group of people are Doro Easy mobile phones. They are
especially designed for senior people’s use. They’re easy to use and there are
no additional features that old people don’t need. We think that it is
important to have mobile phones for all kinds of people. In a world of
smartphones, it is easy forget about the people that don’t want to use them,
but by studying the needs of different groups of people, we can come up with
products suited for the targeted groups.
Sources:
- https://www.doro.co.uk/mobile-devices/easy-phones.html
- http://www.designkit.org/human-centered-design
- http://www.psychologydiscussion.net/behaviour/7-methods-of-studying-human-behaviour/540
- Aino Ahtinen and Aparajita Chowhury, “Psychology of Pervasive Computing, Lecture 1”, 27.8.2017, Tampere University of Technology.
Thank you so much for your post and the video link! I actually recommend each member of the class to take a look at this video to get a basic idea of the human-centered design.
ReplyDeleteIt is important to keep in mind that, as you said, there are many different menthods for exploring user needs and evaluating user experience. All methods complement each other. Personally, I like especially interviews and observation to get an in-depth understanding about the human related phenomena and reasons that might be a bit hidden initially. By studying psychology you can understand your users and design better.
Observation is actually a very interesting way to read human psychology. Specially when you are testing a very new technology, you can understand how many people are interested by observing the passer-by. You need to understand human psychology in order to evaluate those reactions. I like the example of Doro phones, because I can connect to it personally. We all have family members who does not like the idea of touch screens. Target group is very important in this case and it is also important to choose your target audience wisely. Thank you for the post.
ReplyDeleteThe gap between the elderly and younger people is a great example of a challenge in human-centered design. As a tester of one Doro prototype I must point out that while their products have got many things right the designs still need work. I wasn't able to find scientific research on the Doro products so I tried to find research on mobile phone design guidelines for the elderly. Kurniawan (2007) mentions that the elderly mostly call to their partners, keep the phone with themselves to feel safe and use the phone as a memory aid (address book, alarm clock, etc.).
ReplyDeleteThese are functions that the Doro products (based on their product page) seem to do well. Some of the phones even have A,B,C -buttons to call the most important persons. Doro also addresses the need for safety by adding an emergency button behind the phones.
Kurniawan also lists three most difficult aspects of using a mobile phone which are learning to use, navigating menus and choosing the right option. I feel these are the elements that Doro still has work to do even though the aforementioned publication is from 2007. Most if not all products listed as Doro Easy phones have traditional navigation menus from the era before touch screens which seem to hard to learn and memorize. It is interesting to notice that these menus have not drastically changed over the years. Is this a limitation of the hardware or could the designs still be made better?
Joonas
In my work experience (advertising) I have used the methods human center design by Ideo couple of times; I found it specially good when you have to work with different cultures, or very specific segments of the population. (Like indigenous of Amazonia).
ReplyDeleteBecause the methods is some how an immersive way of observing, sometimes experience in real life the problems you are trying to solve. Is very different if you are working to provide a solution for easier access to drinkable water, when you experience the lack of access.
Also the idea of fast prototyping and getting real-time feedback from the user let you as a designer/engineer/ inventor evolve much more faster, combine your solution with the real conditions where the product is going to be, but specially to see and sometimes foreseen the impact of your design in that specific culture.
And that is the biggest lesson I got as a designer with this method, if the solution that am I am providing just improves one specific problem, but alter other factors like, human relations, community interactions, or even worst the ecosystem itself, means that the solution is still need to get update.