Design Review: Human Centered Design

David Kelley – Human Centred Design, 2002


Human Centred Design,


To me this video highlights an area of design that is crucial to the success of a product in today’s market. By creating a connection between the user and the product it is more likely to enhance the user’s experience. The video outlines some key elements in achieving this result such as designing behaviour and personality into products to create this connection.


To be a successful designer in today’s competitive environment, Human Centred Design is a design principle that we cannot ignore. As technology advances it is a designer’s role to deliver this technology to the user in a form that not only enables use of the technology, but also gives the user enjoyment while doing so.
The video showed 6 product examples and highlights the Human Centred Design in each. The examples were significantly different from each other but each product showed elements where the designers had considered how the product would be used and how this would influence the users experience. For example David spoke about designing the Spyfish as 2 projects. The first was to design the interface to provide an experience of being underwater; the second was to design the object as a consumer product. My understanding of a successful consumer product is that it must look good, perform the required function, be fit for purpose, provide value for money etc. I think the successful design of the interface to provide the user with an experience of being underwater is where the Human Centred Design lies because this is where the experience and connection will be formed between the user and product.


An area that interests me personally was the Ultimate Cubicle example. I liked this example because it focuses on something that millions of people use everyday and it tries to improve on that. I feel strongly about improving our lives by simply looking at the things we already have and improving these things first.
I think Human Centred Design is simply the process where we consider the emotions and personal experience of a user, and then try to improve our products in this area. I think it is important for designers to understand and implement Human Centred Design in their products to ensure product success.