Human-Centred Design – Robotics Design

What is Human Centred Design?

A scientific and methodological approach to design for real people

How to apply the HCD approach?

The Human-Centered Design definitions

Standard

ISO 9241-210:2010

Human-centred design is an approach to interactive systems development that aims to make systems usable and useful by focusing on the users, their needs and requirements, and by applying human factors/ergonomics, and usability knowledge and techniques. This approach enhances effectiveness and efficiency, improves human well-being, user satisfaction, accessibility and sustainability; and counteracts possible adverse effects of use on human health, safety and performance.

Norman

1998, p. 185

HCD it’s a process of product development that starts with users and their needs rather than with technology. The goal is a technology that serves the user, where the technology fits the task and the complexity is that of the task, not of the tool. At its core, human-centered product development requires developers who understand people and the tasks they wish to achieve.

Giacomin

2015, p. 610

HCD is based on the use of techniques which communicate, interact, empathize and stimulate the people involved, obtaining an understanding of their needs, desires and experiences which often transcends that which the people themselves actually realized. HCD is distinct from many traditional design practices because the focus of the questions, insights and activities lies with the people for whom the product, system or service is intended, rather than in the designer’s personal creative process.

Woodson

1981 in Rubin (1994, p. 12)

Human-Centered Design is the practice of designing products so that users can perform required use, operation, service, and supporting tasks either a minimum of stress and maximum of efficiency.

Krippendorff

2004, p. 48

Human-centred design is concerned less with assuring that artifacts work as intended (by their producers, designers, or other cultural authorities) than with enabling many individual or cultural conceptions to unfold into uninterrupted interfaces with technology.

Tosi

2020, p. 24

HCD describes an approach to design aimed at the quality of the interaction between people and physical or virtual systems (products, equipment, environments and services) with which they interact. It is based on the ability to gather and process the information needed to understand people’s needs and expectations in the relationships they establish, or can establish, with the system, through structured and verifiable methods of investigation and evaluation.

The Human-Centred Design approach

The HCD approach is pragmatic and allows an immediate translation of theoretical principles into methodological applications useful to analyze all the variables that influence the human-system interaction and to structure a design process focused on objectives in relation to the different contexts of use and the different ways of using the system. However, the HCD approach requires a designer’s attitude to accept a process based on evaluation, error analysis, discovery and continuous improvement. All this so that the preferences and needs of the end user (expressed concretely in the project only after their evaluation) are the foundation of the project.

(Rubin & Chisnell, 2008)

The Human-Centred Design principles

Iterative

It is a cyclic process in which a research phase of empirical studies is followed by a design phase, in which solutions are generated which can in turn be evaluated empirically.

Understanding

The design is based upon an explicit understanding of users, tasks and environments.

Multidisciplinary

The design team includes multidisciplinary skills and perspectives.

System-oriented

It recognizes that the interaction between product and user takes place in the context of a bigger sociotechnical system, which in turn operates within the context of economic and political systems, environmental ecosystems, and so on.

Assessment

The empirical assessment of how to use the product.

Focus

The ability to immediately focus attention on the user and the task.

Involving

Users are involved throughout design and development.

Participative

It seeks to enroll the end-user of the product as an active participant in the design process.

User's task

It takes due account of the user’s task. It recognizes that the match between product and user is commonly task-specific.

Pragmatic

It recognizes that there may be limits to what is reasonably practicable in any particular case and seeks to reach the best possible outcome within the constraints imposed by these limits.

Evaluation

The design is driven and refined by user-centred evaluation.

UX

The design addresses the whole user experience.

Empirical

It seeks to base the decisions of the design process upon hard data concerning the physical and mental characteristics of human beings, their observed behaviour and their reported experiences.

Non-Procrustean

It deals with people as they are rather than as they might be; it aims to fit the product to the user rather than viceversa.

Diversity

It takes due account of human diversity. It aims to achieve the best possible match for the greatest possible number of people.