Human by design

Our digital lives are a constant stream of information and questions. Service desks overflow with phone calls and support tickets, and it seems like a new chatbot pops up every day to tackle the never-ending barrage of enquiries.

But why do people need so much help with everyday tasks? What if we tackled the root problem and designed services and experiences that empower real people to accomplish their goals without constant assistance?

The essence of human-centred design (HCD):

• Focuses on real user needs: Puts people at the centre of the problem to understand what they’re trying to achieve and how they prefer to operate.

• Designs services that support daily tasks: Builds experiences that help users complete everyday actions more easily and confidently.

• Improves efficiency and value: Reduces time and cost by freeing employees from manual repetitive tasks so they can focus on work that matters.

• Enhances accessibility for citizens: Helps people complete critical tasks without the need to call or walk into a service office.

Tips for implementing HCD

1. Understand your users

The key to effective user-centred design is to understand your users—the people you serve. Developing personas is a simple method to identify the various user types. For a government agency, these users might include local, inter-state, or international citizens. They could range from digitally savvy individuals to those who primarily operate offline. By understanding the diverse user types and their unique needs, you can better anticipate and design the services they need.

2. Map user journeys

After identifying your primary personas, it’s crucial to map out their tasks and journeys. Take, for example, the task of registering for a new service. A digitally savvy user might prefer using your app, an international user might need a web-based form, and an offline user might require a hard copy form sent by mail. By mapping these journeys upfront, you can design the right service and experience from the start, avoiding the significant costs associated with re-developing or correcting a journey later.

3. Consider individual tasks in context

It is important to consider that a single task is rarely experienced in isolation; it is part of a network of touchpoints and interactions. Users often need to complete a series of tasks to achieve their outcome. For instance, a newly registered user might need to update their profile, add security questions, or link their account with another service. Effective journey mapping will highlight these dependencies, and good human-centred design will treat them as a connected family of streamlined experiences.

4. Stop thinking about yourself

Often, we are so wrapped up in the internal structures of our own organisations that we forget who we are serving. And this carries through into our services. We require our users to work within our organisational structures which creates unnatural hand-off points in a process. We hold information in silos and make users provide the same information more than once. A user doesn’t care which department owns which part of the process; they just want to get the task done and get back to living their life.

Human-centred design is about putting people at the centre of the problem and the centre of the solution. It’s about creating intuitive, seamless experiences that help users complete their tasks quickly and easily. Human-centred design is a critical ingredient for successful digital transformation.