Human-Centered Strategy: User-Centered, Business-Considered
There are three parties in experience strategy to address using HCD approaches*: users, providers, and sponsors. To leave any of them out of consideration in framing your project is a risk to your success in serving all of them.
So many products, services, and experiences work so well because of an overt focus on the end user in design and the pursuit of customer satisfaction. But a great HCD-driven experience design and strategy combines approaches that don’t just put the end user’s experience first, it also addresses the other human experiences that deliver and sustain it.
Service design highlights the need for an expansive view of “human-centered.”
“Who’s being served?” is determined up front in framing the endeavor. Who we frame the problem, and for whom, determines what is a “good” solution.** At the very minimum, we need to design for two** people: Who’s being served and who’s doing the serving. Good solutions are also determined by the sponsor.
Users/customers; providers; sponsors
Any strategy and design engagement will carefully identify who is centered, ie, the end user who is our focus for discovery and problem-solving. A good engagement scoping and framing stage also takes a systems view into account and is intentional about including others. (You’ll need to differentiate between an end user and customer; they have different constraints, motivations, and influences on success.)
A good scoping also looks at the humans who deliver the experience, their needs and impacts as well. Unmet needs behind the scenes become showstoppers, and happiness pays off everywhere.
The sponsor is the key third stakeholder whose experience must be understood in the framing process. It’s their view, their core needs, and their resources that will determine ultimately whether anyone else is served at all. A team can spend weeks on a desirable solution that solves a customer need, and appears feasible to execute; but the sponsor is the gatekeeper for delivery and/or scale. You need to understand where the sponsor is coming from, what they’re trying to do, and their constraints as they navigate their business challenges.
Stakeholder and sponsor ‘research’ is a rewarding way to practice curiosity and connection, and to drive toward clear and confident framing. Interviews are the best method, but stakeholders’ time is precious. A coffee break or attending meetings together can help us both surface important considerations. Stakeholders appreciate careful listening and desk research ahead of time. I’ve also found my experience working with leaders (and implementers) from a variety of contexts helps me relate and interpret on the fly. Ultimately we’re all aiming for a truer picture of constraints and opportunities for strategic problem-solving.
Other stakeholders matter, of course. (eg How deep in the service model? How to segment and focus on a user?) I prefer building a stakeholder map and working out the core set needed to get the framing and scoping figured out for now. With our sponsor’s input we can revisit the stakeholders we’ll need to prioritize on our early iterations and our process for solving the other stakeholder needs to learn what makes a truly good solution from multiple angles.
In short, there are three parties in service and experience strategy to address using HCD approaches: users, providers, and sponsors. To leave any of them out of consideration is a risk, so build time with stakeholders inside the business into project framing and scoping up front and along the way.
How are you framing your projects? What steps are you taking to learn about your stakeholders?
Neal
*I tend to use the phrase ‘human centered design approaches’ (plural) because HCD is a growing field with many practitioners and theorists; many frameworks; and many methods. Essential to all HCD approaches is to consider the people who are using a product or service, their needs, and the impacts on them, at the conception, throughout, and in the evaluation of a design process.
** Which humans are centered and included, how, (and who is excluded) are important discussions as HCD, and similarly, Design Thinking, proliferates and matures. That’s a healthy, necessary, and deep discussion as well. (See MIT Technology Review op-ed; see also; https://medium.com/greater-good-studio/decentering-the-designer-c74725d0d23a