As David Kelley, Founder of IDEO said: “If you want to improve a piece of software all you have to do is watch people using it and see when they grimace, and then you can fix that.” Come and see how the Human Centered approach transforms a bundle of technology, with the ability to provide functionality into a product. These people will ultimately desire to interact with and driving engagement and growth.
8. “Is a creative approach to problem-solving (…)
a process that starts with the people you’re
designing for and ends with new solutions
that are tailor-made to suit their needs”
IDEO
9. An “approach [that] aims to design products
suitable for their intended users by involving
them in the design process”.
Human-Centered
15. Human-Centered Design example:
“How can we help people understand their electricity
and gas bills by explaining their consumption as
easily as possible?”
19. "I feel more comfortable with euros.
My income it’s in euros. "
"If this is about me, the examples of my
consumption should be customised."
"I don’t know how much
the kwh costs."
"This is very complicated. kWh here,
and euros there. Uncomplicate. "
"I only compare with the values
from the previous invoice."
"I am spending too much."
21. "Kwh mean nothing."
"It has too much detail. Why do i
need all of these comparisons?"
“This is exactly the problem with
this kind of companies, they talk a
language only they understand.”
"Readings are a concern I do
not want to have."
"So you think people will
send readings every
month?"
"Wow, if you do the math
this is expensive."
23. "Why do we need the Kwh?"
"Is this going to be in real-time?"
“If these How to save were real
would be great.”
"I never send readings. The
energy company does it for me."
Notas del editor
Because i knew i would be a little bit nervous and anxious when starting this talk,
i thought i would calm myself down and get comfortable with you guys by talking about myself a little bit.
So i guess this is what i would also do in a life threatening situation...i would say: wait i need to relax first by telling you a funny story about me.
So this is me with adrenaline pumping through my entire body and enjoying a bungy jump. Pretty cool right!?
Also me, its the person who took almost 10min to convince myself to jump off the platform.
I was nervous and anxious and only took me 10min to jump and not more because i heard someone on the guy’s walkie talkie that goes up on the platform with you saying “c’mon guys, what is taking you so long!?
There’s people waiting” and since i don’t like making people wait for me i decided it was time to jump.
And this is exactly what i am doing today.
So, my name is Tania Vieira, im an User Experience Designer here at Premium Minds and i will be talking about (next slide)
Human-Centered Design has been a buzzword in the design community for years.
The problem with advocating Human-Centered Design is that it can often be translated as the exclusive domain of designers.
One misconception that I am still surprised to hear these days is that design is about making a product pretty — that it’s about designing the cereal box.
Of course, colors, typography, layout and graphics — the classic elements of visual design — play an important role in the overall impact a digital product experience has on users.
But pixel-perfect mockups and great elements are just one component of a well-designed product.
Design is in fact about solving problems through a creative process.
So let’s make first things first, and start by clearing up what HCD stands for.
According to IDEO, human-centered design “is a creative approach to problem-solving (…) a process that starts with the people you’re designing for and ends with new solutions that are tailor-made to suit their needs”.
[For those who don’t know what IDEO is - is a global design company that aims to create positive impact through design.
It was founded 30 years ago and they are known as the pioneers of human-centered design, or if you prefer, putting people at the center of their work.
They are the one’s behind Apple’s first computer mouse]
In short, HCD is a mindset anyone can adopt to solve problems and find solutions that meet human needs.
So i think is clear that focusing on users and their needs is an obvious characteristic of HCD, however, it also has other key elements, such as:
It involves both the stakeholders and the users in the design and development of a solution to their problem
It’s an iterative process, with plenty of prototyping and feedback loops
It’s done by multidisciplinary teams in which different perspectives contribute to a rich and holistic view of the problem and solution
So basically this means that problems are best solved in a collaborative way.
_________________________
Ultimately,
this approach is what transforms a bundle of technology
with ability to provide functionality into a product that people desire to interact with
and also driving engagement and growth.
To show you how we can apply this approach in your products, i brought a case study of a product i worked on for almost a year back in 2016/2017.
I was working for a client - who is the biggest energy company in Portugal - at the time they had 85% of the market, also the first official year of the liberalized market. (They started this year - 2019 - with a 81%)
So explaining the case study, this is how my team and i received a new project. Read the sentence:
(kwh / m3 = unit of measurement)
(Killo watt hour and cubic meter)
Here’s the thing.
When a client or PM or anyone asks for your help with a solution already in mind what they are really asking is “make this idea work and make it pretty”
(previous slide) So what HCD proposes is... that instead of coming up with a solution upfront, we start by reframing the problem in a actionable and more human way.
Something like this: (read the sentence)
So what we did was, we created a prototype so we could quickly validate the experience and functionalities directly with the target users.
Usually in usability testing you want to do as many small tests as possible in a iterative way so you can learn and evolve the prototype very quickly.
The most striking truth of this curve is that zero users give zero insights.
This curve clearly shows that you need to test with at least 15 users to discover all the usability problems in the design.
But when it comes to usability testing, 5 is the magic number - testing with just 5 users turn up 85% of the problems in an interface.
The main reason is that it is better to distribute your budget for user testing across many small tests instead of blowing everything on a single, elaborate study. So it’s better to spend this budget on 3 studies with 5 users each!
Remember this slide a few minutes ago?
It’s an iterative process, that should have plenty of prototyping and feedback loops
So we went out to the street with this first version of the prototype
Im sorry, this is Portuguese because we did the usability testing in Portugal and in portuguese.
Also, we did this tests in the beginning Summer 2017 hence the August date.
(describe the prototype:)
Basically we tested the unit of measurement for the electricity know as kilowatt hour in a day (big red circle) and how people perceive it,
Also the comparison with the prior reading (left) and the same period of time from the year before (right)
And then, if you did a little scroll you could see the value of those same kwh in the red circle translated into currency (in euros)
If you continued scrolling you had some examples of those kwh and those € represented. One important thing about these examples is that they were not real. Meaning, i have not spent half of the month with my TV on. And since they are just examples we had the sensibility to use a proper copywriting saying: “Your estimated monthly consumption would give to:”
Here are some insights we took from the first round of tests with 5 users.
So we went back to the office satisfied with the feedbacks and the lessons learn and quickly iterated on the prototype.
Just so you know, we did 3 rounds of usability testing. Each round 5 users.
And off we went out to the street again with the second version of the prototype
Again in Portuguese.
(describe the prototype:)
In this 2nd test we put together both kwh and € to see if they were perceived as related
And we did the same thing for the comparison section where we also identified who did the readings
And finally if you scrolled you had some tweaks on the examples of what those kwh and those € represented putting the title way bigger
Here are some insights we took from the second round of tests with 5 users.
Again we went back to the office satisfied with the feedbacks and shared the lessons learned with the stakeholders before quickly iterated on the next prototype.
For round 3, we tried to do something different based on all the feedback we learned from users.
We knew the stakeholders really wanted to show the kwh and comparisons but people don’t really understand its value and are not committed to send readings every month.
So we delivered a solution we thought would be the best solution both for the stakeholders and the end-users.
(describe the prototype:)
The euros come first, and kwh are there but are not really important
A comparison with the last reading and the previous one. Not exactly two months in a row, but the ones available - in this case august (latest month) and april (the most recent reading available before august)
We kept the examples of what those kwh and those € represented but changed the example for something more personal
And added an “how to save” area at the end of the screen.
Here are some insights we took from the third and last round of tests with 5 users.
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Wrap up
Hopefully, this example confirms the usefulness of human-centered design to create better products that solve both the stakeholders goals and the users needs and pain points.
And by now you’re all ready to tackle your creative process from a new and more empathic angle -- the human angle.