#hcde

To most people, the ideas of design and engineering seem like some magic that happens behind closed doors, performed only by people with high educations and high salaries

However, here we’ll learn a little bit about how we’ve gone from this

to this

First, let’s talk about a little bit of background information:

Lets assume products are designed to help people (in a perfect world), and to help people, you must understand, well, PEOPLE. In short

PROBLEM = DESIGN OPPORTUNITY

DESIGN OPPORTUNITY = PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Thats it. Thats the whole basis of product engineering, build something to achieve a goal. And make it efficient!

Okay, so now that we know the goal, how do we get from acknowledging a problem to creating a fully designed and functional product that people use?

Well, it takes a lot of gathering information and reflecting before anything can happen. Were gonna talk about some fancy words for a minute but bear with me:

Usability- the degree to which something is able or fit to be used

We can test how easy or difficult a product is to use by testing many people’s experience with it. This is called usability testing. In fact, some people’s careers are just testing usability and quality of products for companies. One of the ways we test usability is through user research.

User Research-  understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies.

Basically, the process of collecting data about possible users. Sometimes this looks like one on one research, such as a usability test, or looking at masses of data to analyze peoples needs thought things like surveys, censuses, and experiments. 

This helps us to learn a little bit about the overall experience of the product, the broader environmental contexts, user struggle areas, and efficiency. 

Last word to learn: 

Ideation- to generate and communicate ideas about products through visual representations (usually drawing/ prototyping)

this is the part where you start to draw out ideas for products that solve the problem at hand. 

Heres an ideated image of a wheelchair that has many different amenities like an X-box screen and subwoofers. While not everything in this drawing is perfect and planned out, it achieves some goal the designer had, and communicates their ideas. 

From here, countless rounds of product testing, ideation, and prototyping will be done until a product is manufactured and available to users. 

Finally, here is a small list of some guidelines of design to keep in mind:

Accessibility: Is my product accessible to a wide range of users?

Constraints: Are there parts of my design that are physically impossible to accomplish given the technology and resources available?

Privacy- Am I respecting my users privacy in the development and the execution of my product?

This process is not simply a one and done deal. The way that we got from hard to use, ancient wheelchairs to modern wheelchairs is through constant design improvement! Because we are always learning more about people’s needs, and we are constantly coming up with better ideas improve products!

The future could hold something greater! 

You are impacted by every single product that you use in your everyday life. We know this because as users, we HATE it when a product is difficult to use. 

Question design choices made about the products you use, and your ideas, too, can contribute to future of design! We never know what it could hold...

“HCDE? What does that stand for?”

“So are you, like, an engineer or a designer??”

“Human centered design? It can’t be that hard to design products for people!”

I’m sure everyone in the field of HCDE has heard these questions. Often more than once. With HCDE being such a small program within the deep dark labyrinth of the UW College of Engineering, it has not gained much recognition outside of the program itself. Even when I explain my projects from HCDE 210 to my peers at UW, I am met with confused looks. They seem perplexed about the purpose and methods of my assignments, even referring to my work as “fake,” (as a joke, but nevertheless it shows their lack of exposure to user specific design). So here is a simple guide to the ins and outs of human centered design engineering.

To begin, the main idea behind human centered design engineering is in the name: human centered. The goal of designers is to create products that are best fit for their specific user groups. For example, products for children would likely need to be simpler and consist mostly of fun colors and images in order to make said product more engaging for its users. User groups can be broad or very specific. Anywhere from public transport users to blind seventy-five-year-old Russian scuba divers. No matter how broad the user group, as long as their needs are deeply considered during every stage of product design, then that practice falls into the realm of HCDE.

So what does it mean to “consider one’s users?” From my experience in HCDE 210, I have learned that it’s more than just designing products for people. Human centered designers must accommodate for the needs of every user they are designing for as well as consider the ethics behind their creations. Will the product negatively impact or overall worsen the livelihood of any group? Will the product damage the environment? Will it cause emotional trauma? These are all questions that designers must ask themselves during the creative process.