Mirror of a brain

may.18.19 /

it’s been a hot minute since i’ve been here. ap exams have been keeping things busy over here, so now that they’re over hopefully i’ll have more time to post. this is my monthly spread for may! it’s inspired by the cover of my favorite book, the sun is also a star by nicola yoon. i’m excited to see the movie!

Human centered design is perhaps the most important aspect of being a designer. Solving a problem, and executing the solution have no meaning if it’s not in favor of the person(s) it’s intended to help. What’s the point in exerting a lot of effort to design something that looks amazing if it’s not actually functional? The short answer is: there’s no point. From IDEO (ideo.org), they specifically state that they design for the impoverished. They go through great lengths to make sure they understand who they’re designing for before taking any further steps. They state that “human centered design sits at the intersection of empathy and creativity”. They’re improving people’s lives. Without doing their human research, they would just be designing things that either make no difference, or make the problem worse.

According to DC Design’s article “What is Human-Centered Design?” on medium.com, human centered design solves the core of a problem. Meaning, a bandaid isn’t just slapped on top of a wound, it’s actually stitched up. They have five steps in their process of solving a problem: 1- Empathize 2- Define 3- Ideate 4-Prototype, and 5- Test and Iterate. Technically that’s six steps, but I’ll give them a pass.

The design process is very dynamic, rather than linear. It takes dynamic thinking to solve these problems. Linear solutions can’t solve dynamic problems. Human centered design and design thinking are extremely similar so they might as well be intertwined.

Human centered design isn’t exclusive to communication design, it’s used across multiple professions. It’s even being applied to cancer cure. According to “Thinking beyond the cure: A case for human-centered design in cancer care” written by Tara Mullaney, Helena Pettersson, Tufve Nyholm and Erik Stolterman, healthcare desperately needs human centered design thinking when it comes to treatment. They’ve found that implementing this way of thinking allows them to find anxiety triggers in cancer patients, typically related to radiation therapy, which they are then able to treat and it allows for an easier process for everyone involved.