Human Centered Design: Examples & Explanation

Did you know that 88% of users are less likely to return to a website after encountering a poor experience? Or that the top second reason startups fail is the lack of market demand for their products?

How are these two facts mentioned above related? The answer lies in human centered design. Your approach to the UX and UI of your product can directly affect the satisfaction of your end users.

Consider one more thing. According to Forbes, people rarely or never use about 80% of the typical SaaS product’s features. Does that mean that investing in broad functionality is pointless? It’s not quite so. More reasonable is putting money into what your users really need. And the human centered design is just about learning your customers’ demands.

Let’s figure out what this approach to product creation is and why human-centered design is significant for your software. In today’s article, Arounda will rely on its five-year experience creating user-centered interfaces and products used by millions of people worldwide. Plus, we’ll share the most prominent examples.

What Is Human Centered Design?

Human centered design is a problem-solving approach to product design. It involves putting your users’ needs and pain points above all other factors in creating your software.

Main human centered design principles include:

• Studying the problems of your users that your product should solve.

• Adapting your idea to the needs of your end users.

• Determining the value of your product to potential users.

• Putting end users at the center of every design process stage.

This strategy for UI UX design aims to create more intuitive and accessible software that helps solve your audience’s issues. A human-centered product will also have significant value for your business, potentially bringing more customers and higher profits.

Core Phases of Human Centered Design

Having human centered design explained, you’re probably wondering what this process includes. Let’s go through the main phases:

1. Inspiration

The first phase involves studying the needs of your customers. In simple words, this is conducting your audience research.

This stage is critical because it allows you to develop your product according to existing market requirements, not your assumptions about user needs. Here you will learn directly from the audience about their pain points, the software features that can satisfy them, and the moments when the end user will most need your product.

From you, as the digital product owner, this phase requires empathy, that is, the ability to put yourself in the shoes of others. How your users feel when using your software, what can annoy them, etc. — you determine all this at the inspiration stage.

Now let’s get straight to how you can learn about real users’ needs.

The first way is by conducting polls among the audience. You can do this conveniently. For instance, through an email newsletter, a survey on social networks, or a rather old-fashioned but still effective method — a phone call.

Another method is to create a group of real users. In this way, you can conduct interviews with customers face-to-face or by any other means of real-time communication.

As a result of the research, you will have a clear idea of ​​the needs and problems of your target audience and will be able to move to the next phase of the human centered design process.

2. Ideation

This phase involves comparing user needs with your existing idea or inventing a product concept from scratch based on audience requirements.

At this stage, you and the team will benefit from brainstorming. Give freedom to your employees and let them propose even the most bizarre ideas. Further, among a bunch of concepts, choose those that seem most relevant to you and continue to sift through ideas until you find one that will become your universal solution.

After you have agreed on your software idea, you can start creating UX and user interface design prototypes. Next, you should test these prototypes among real users, collect their feedback, and consider improvements. And it would help if you did this until you are sure of the viability of your idea.

3. Implementation

When you are convinced that your idea has a chance of success, you can proceed to the implementation stage.

This phase involves creating a full-fledged design and launching your product on the market. In particular, you will need a strong marketing strategy for this.

After you launch your product, you initiate a never-ending process — the ongoing support of your software. It would help to constantly analyze user feedback to keep your digital product relevant.

Human Centered Design Examples

We’ve promised to provide you with some decent human-centered design examples. And we keep our word — look through the following success stories:

Spotify

Spotify stood at the foot of a music industry revolution. This audio streaming service allowed people to collect all their music in one convenient place instead of buying audio by different means and locations.

With a monthly subscription, users can access millions of audio and personalized selections to suit their tastes and a convenient user interface.

Venmo

This service has become so popular that “I’ll Venmo you” is a synonym for money transfers.

Venmo is a real treasure in FinTech, showing how convenient and easy it is to make transactions from a smartphone. The company offers a human-centric design that eliminates the need for cash and checks.

Netflix

As a streaming service, Netflix has made the life of moviegoers many times more comfortable by allowing them to watch their favorite films and series in one place for a monthly subscription.

Netflix didn’t just eliminate the need for movie rentals and cable TV. This service is also one of the best examples of human centered design, known for its personalized selections driven by algorithms and user-friendly interface.

Uber

Uber has completely changed the perception of taxi services. More precisely, this company revolutionized the mobility industry by offering ride-hailing services in a convenient mobile application. In addition, they have also rolled out their food delivery service.

Now any driver can provide mobility services or engage in delivery. It’s that simple. For passengers, the application offers real-time driver tracking, estimated arrival time, the most optimal route, a convenient search for cars nearby, and even more. All this with users in mind.

Duolingo

Duolingo is one of the top user-centered design product examples as well. This language-learning service offers almost 40 languages for studying and provides its customers with a simplistic and gamified user experience design.

This product proposes to learn the language conveniently by levels and categories. Only after passing one level (lesson) can the user access the following tasks. This gamified strategy allows people to keep motivated and engaged.

Why Consider Human Centered Design for Your Product?

If the successful user-centered design examples did not convince you to adopt this design strategy, we have prepared some more reasons to focus your product on the end user.

Better User Experience

The human centered design allows you to identify the real needs of your target audience. As a result, you can provide your customers with the best product that is easy to use.

Saved Money on Superfluous Solutions

A thorough audience analysis will also help you significantly save your budget. Now you don’t need to spend money on implementing large-scale functionality. You know exactly which solutions to invest in and which of them will be 100% in demand.

Increased Profits

Human centered design is not only about saving money. It is also about the opportunity to increase your profits significantly. It becomes a reality as you can attract more loyal users and increase your conversion rate.

Better Brand Image

Do you want users to return to your digital product again and again? Then invest in human centered design. In this way, you will not only make your software accessible and simple but also establish yourself as a strong brand that values ​​its customers.

Final Thoughts

The human centered design focuses on your users’ needs and pain points. By adopting this strategy in your digital product design, you care about your audience and make them happier by offering solutions to their problems.

As a result, your business benefits significantly. And it’s not only about increased profits but about the opportunity to surround your brand with a loyal audience.

If you have thought about your software’s human centered design, we hope today’s guide will help you with this. We also realize that this design strategy requires careful attention, so we offer our expert services to adopt this approach as smoothly as possible.

Our product design agency has extensive experience in human-centered design. We’ve helped numerous startups, small and middle businesses to raise funds and establish their presence on the market.

If you need one, drop us a line, and let’s collaborate.