What is Human-Centered Design

posted by Anna Fleet on August 31st, 2010

We’ve been talking a whole lot about engaging design in this blog. Why?

Because engagement, or “human-centered design” (HCD) is a process we use to create new, sustainable solutions that will better the world—be it through products, services, cultures of innovation and digital experiences.

This process was deemed “human-centered” by IDEO, the design thinking pioneers and renowned design and consultancy firm founded by Stanford University professor, David Kelley, Bill Moggridge and Mike Nuttall.

According to IDEO, HDC will help your organization:

1. Connect better with your customers

2. Transform data into actionable ideas

3. See new opportunities

4. Increase the speed and effectiveness of creating new solutions

To help us understand HCD a little bit better, IDEO created the three-lens model as a guide to help us during the design process.

As you can see, the HCD process begins with listening and understanding the people we want to affect with our solutions through the first lens, the Desirability lens. As we examine their needs, dreams, and behaviors we can come to identify a range of what is desirable to them. We can then start to view our ideas and solutions through the lenses of Feasibility (what is technically and organizationally feasible) and Viability (What is financially viable?) like this:

As you can see from the graphic, the most effective ideas and solutions that come out of this Human-Centered Design approach will overlap all three lenses.

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Visualization Lifts the Weight of Change

posted by Brenton on August 30th, 2010

One of the joys of working in the Waterloo region is being able to support the rapid growth of organizations—from tech giant RIM to smaller organizations including a local community health care organization.

A few years back we were called in to help a local community health centre that asked, “How can we help our employees fully embrace our new structure?”

After meeting with the management team, we learned that the fast growth and a new structure was causing unrest within the organization. In the past all employees worked in one building. There was a strong internal community built thanks to this close working environment and employees created rituals such as regular potluck lunches, etc. However, in response to the growing demand for health services, the organization received government funding and added a number of satellite offices. This expansion changed the working environment and some employees were not managing the change as well as others.

To help the organization, we led a half day session with all employees where we utilized a number of design thinking techniques including role playing and change mapping. We also used a culture indicator survey based on 12 archetypes as a framework to help individuals better understand their roles and why some were struggling with the change more than others.

Looking back on the success of the session, the most powerful aspect of our time with the organization was providing a safe environment that allowed employees to express how they felt about the changes taking place.

Change Mapping

This exercise was particularly useful. We drew three vertical lines on a flip chart representing three stages of change based on the work of internationally known speaker, author and consultant, William Bridges. The three stages are:

Endings – This stage involves high stress, shock and denial for many people.

Neutral Zone – This is a foggy place between the old way and the new way of being, a middle zone that’s often disorienting and confusing.

Beginnings – When clarity of the new way of being surfaces.

After explaining the model, we asked each employee to place a dot on the chart to represent what stage they were at. There was a fairly even distribution of dots with about a third of the employees still in the endings zone, another third in the neutral zone and the rest had made it to the beginnings stage of change.

This simple visualization exercise helped everyone realize where they were at as a group and assured them that, whatever stage they were in, it was completely normal. This new awareness sparked a rich discussion session by the management team, helping to identify solutions to move people forward.

Our work with the community health care centre reinforced the simple, but often forgotten need to find safe and playful ways to allow people to express themselves and work together to help each other through the fog—towards the bright, energizing new beginnings that await.

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Making Communication Visual

posted by Anna Fleet on August 27th, 2010

A very valuable blog post (in my books) on improving communication by making it visual was featured on MITs CoLab Radio blog. Check out Elizabeth Johansen’s photo (above). It clearly illustrates the project focus, which some refer to as a “storyboard approach”.

Now, I work with some very talented thinkers on a daily basis, and I’ve collaborated with designers in the past, but I wasn’t accustomed to the habit of sketching and white boarding every thought in images. This is really effective no matter what the project or meeting is, and it’s fantastic for relaying abstract thoughts, when trying to sell an idea, or to generate more ideas from a group. It really is effective because it adds weight to your thoughts and ideas—and what’s great about it is that you don’t have to be an artist to utilize it effectively.

Why is visual communication so effective?

1.The brain, by nature, tends to remember visual depictions more often than text.

2. Images break the details of a project up into digestible bits of information—which are much easier to take in and understand.

3. Images also function as a checklist to verify details between project stakeholders and us.

4. This way, project point-of-view can be referenced to at-a-glance.

5. Keep the visual communication in everyone’s view to keep the project on track.

6. Post-Its allow things to be easily updated with new information.

Now, can you “picture” how using visualization in your projects can engage additional parts of the brain and help you and your colleagues break out of old thought patterns?

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Human-Centered Design Improves Healthcare

posted by Anna Fleet on August 25th, 2010

The Harvard Business Review recently featured an interview with Kaiser Permanente, of Kaiser Pemanente Innovation Consultancy. In the interview he discusses how the design thinking process is used to turn front line staff (nurses) into co-designers in our hospitals.

Permanente says, “We do this by finding the few folks early on who want to share their dreams, their desires, their pain points with us. Then we observe them through a shadowing process in their expertise areas … and take them through the ideation phase where front line staff are inspired to release all of the great ideas inside of them.” To Permanente seeing those low fidelity prototypes (ideas) put into action in a hospital within few weeks is truly powerful stuff.

And thanks to this engagement with frontline staff and patients, human-centered design has created solutions that solve universal problems in health care— medication administration error, nurse shift handoff and pain management—and improve the quality of health care.

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Cultivating a “Group Mind”

posted by Anna Fleet on August 24th, 2010

Thanks to the team at MFX Partners, I’ve developed a love of exploring the unknown through the design thinking process. It really is contagious! And the ideas and energy that flow between our creative team during a meeting or brainstorming session have often led to some incredible and new ways of solving problems for our clients.

Elizabeth Johansen, the Director of Product Development at Design that Matters, a company that creates new products and services for the poor in developing countries is passionate about creating positive social impact through design. In a blog post for CoLab Radio, she calls this group exercise cultivating “the group mind”.

No, it’s not a matter of everyone involved thinking alike and following each other like sheep. Rather, it’s a collaborative experience where members of the group are comfortable and free to be themselves and meld individual ideas and personalities together to become a collective that opens new doors they would never have discovered without the help of the whole. I should also mention that Johansen worked as a product designer at IDEO for 8 years—so she knows her stuff.

When it comes to forming a solid “group mind”, Johansen recommends taking advice from Truth in Comedy or what’s known as the improv comedy bible by authors Charna Halpern, Del Close, and Kim Johnson. The book claims that a “group mind” is formed, “Once [a participant] puts his own ego out of the way…stops judging the ideas of others—instead, he considers them brilliant…pays close attention to each other, hearing and remembering everything, and respecting all that they hear. The goal…is to connect the information created out of the group ideas—so it’s easily capable of brilliance.”

Truth in Comedy goes on to recommend the “yes, &…” approach, which is one of the most concrete techniques for cultivating “group mind”. The approach is described as follows:

“[Participants] agree with each other to the Nth degree. If one asks the other a question, the other must respond positively…answering “No” leads nowhere… Each new initiation furthers the last one, and the scene progresses. The acceptance of each other’s ideas brings the players together, and engenders a “group mind.”

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Experimental Design Making a Difference in Bertie, NC

posted by Anna Fleet on August 23rd, 2010

Why would you study design if you weren’t planning on becoming a designer? Well, if you were one of the 16 high school students in 11th grade at the School of Agriscience and Biotechnology at Bertie Early College High School it might be your best chance to make a difference in the impoverished rural area of North Carolina.

Bertie County is one of the poorest counties in the U.S., where 80 percent of students live in poverty, and your best chance of employment will be a low-skilled job in agriculture or biotechnology.

The 16 teenagers in grade 11 have committed to attending an experimental design course called Studio H (which stands for Humanity, Habitats, Health and Happiness) for three hours every day this coming school year. The once abandoned car body shop behind the school has been converted into a classroom, studio and workshop to house Studio H and it’s students. During the school year the students will be tasked with designing a community farmers’ market to sell locally gown produce.

Emily Pilloton, the founder of Studio H, recently moved to Bertie County from San Franciso—along with project architect, Matthew Miller—with the hopes that social and humanitarian design initiatives will in some way help the people living here. If Studio H is successful in Bertie County, Pilloton and Miller plan to introduce it to other poor rural schools.

Because of Bertie County’s poverty, “very few of these kids will become designers,” says Pilloton, “Lots of people in poor rural communities like this have no idea what design means…but we’ll be teaching the students design thinking, leadership skills, shop skills and citizenship. Hopefully they’ll think of design as a different way of thinking, seeing and tackling problems. If they go on to work in, say, agriculture, it’s a great way of understanding why they might plant in a different way.”

Read the full New York Times article about design thinking in Bertie County.

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Do Ego-less Contributors Exist?

posted by Brenton on August 20th, 2010

I came across an interesting job posting recently—one that listed “must be an ego-less contributor, always ready to listen, always eager to learn, but also able to objectively assert oneself based on experience and best practices” as a requirement to do the job effectively.

Imagine an organization where all individuals showed up with this mindset? Why, this organization could accomplish almost anything they set out to do.

If you walked into an organization that was fueled by people like this, you’d see a highly collaborative, agile, creative, optimistic group of people doing big things in the world—even changing the world. I personally think that every organization could learn from these characteristics. They are, after all, identified as essential in creating cultures of innovation from big thinkers like the Harvard Business Review.

Take it from Steve Jobs who said that getting fired from Apple was the most humbling, yet life and career shifting experience that ultimately resulted in a healthier ego and greater openness to collaborate. In a speech he delivered to Stanford a few years back, Jobs said that he was certain that his recent successes with Pixar, iPod, iTunes, etc., wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been fired from Apple (and recognized the importance of collaboration).

It might be semantics, but I don’t think that the employer who posted the job wants an “ego-less” contributor. Who can truly be ego-less? And is that even a useful goal? Taking a deeper look at the description, I’d say the employer is looking someone who can balance humility (always ready to listen, always eager to learn) with a healthy ego (objectively assert oneself).

I read a book recently called Egonomics that describes this balance as “ego equilibrium”. Another useful concept that I pulled from the book is the notion of ideas vs. identity. The concept focuses on keeping ideas—or keeping what you think and believe—separate from your identity—or who you are. When you link the two it can lead to defensiveness, which kills openness and collaboration. Don’t kid yourself. Separating ideas from identity isn’t an easy feat. It takes a great deal of self-awareness and deliberate work not to take feedback personally.

But give it a try the next time your company has a brainstorming session or group meeting. Look at the ideas contributed simply as ideas and don’t attach them to the people who contributed them. You can probably already see how this would keep minds open, and creativity and innovation flowing.

So tell me, what do you think about this idea? I promise I won’t take your input personally.

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Failure Sucks—but Instructs

posted by Anna Fleet on August 19th, 2010

An excellent point made by the Harvard Business Review today states that “there is no learning without failure.”

Robert I. Sutton, author of the article and co-author of five books on managerial audiences (including The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Firms Turn Knowledge Into Action), says that failure is prevalent in the face of innovation. Meaning, “the reality is that the typical successful innovator experiences the agony of defeat far more often than the thrill of victory,” says Sutton.

It’s true that failure will occur, and often. But the key is, instead of giving up, we should learn from our failures and put those lessons toward our future successes. Sutton goes on to say that, “The ability to capitalize on hard-won experience is a hallmark of the greatest organizations—the ones that are most adept at turning knowledge into action…and the ones that are the most successful when it comes to developing and implementing creative ideas.

Read the full article to find out why the most successful creators tend to be those with the most failures.

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Creating Cultures of Innovation

posted by Anna Fleet on August 18th, 2010

A recent IBM poll shed some interesting statistics on business when they talked to 1,500 CEOs across 60 countries. Here’s what they found:

  • CEOs rated creativity as the most important leadership skill
  • 80% said that business literally demands new ways of thinking
  • However, less than 50% believe their organizations are equipped to deal with complex business environments

To deal with the shifting business landscape, the Harvard Business Review shared six secrets to creating a culture of innovation that they believe businesses must make in order to survive.

1. Meet needs

Examine what your employees need to perform at their very best. Look at how well their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs are being met in the workplace. It’s no secret that the more staff is preoccupied by unsatisfied needs; the less energy they bring to work. Hint: Let employees design their days as they see fit. As long as they are achieving their goals, the nitty-gritty details shouldn’t matter.

2. Teach a systematic approach to creativity

Betty Edward’s book Drawing on the Artist Within describes the five stages of creative thinking: first insight, saturation, incubation, illumination, and verification. These provide a rough roadmap for enlisting the whole brain in the thinking process—both the analytic left side of the brain and the big-picture right side of the brain—to solve problems effectively.

3. Nurture passion

We see this with children. When people are assigned tasks that don’t engage their imagination it kills creativity. Those encouraged to follow their passion have better discipline, knowledge, and more resilience to setbacks. Find ways to allow employees to express their unique skills and passions and they will be more engaged and productive at work.

4. Defining purpose

Money pays the bills, but it doesn’t satisfy meaning. Human beings strive to make positive contributions to the world—even on a small level—by doing something that matters. As business leaders, you need to find and communicate a compelling mission as a source of fuel for your employees to move forward.

5. Provide time

Time is scarce in our “more, bigger, faster” society. Ironically creative thinking requires uninterrupted, pressure-free time on a regular basis.

6. Recovery period

Human beings are not machines. To run effectively, the average human can expend energy for short periods of time (approximately 90 minutes), but then we need adequate time to recover. That’s why we all need to step away from problems to let our unconscious work. Many of us take a walk, go for a drive, go to the gym, listen to music or even meditate to spur creative breakthroughs.

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What Makes Inspiring Physical Workspaces?

posted by Anna Fleet on August 17th, 2010

Is it rows of cubicles scattered around a few boardrooms that only the company’s most important stakeholders get to use? Does it have poor lighting, poor color and poor ventilation?

A truly COOL physical workspace is designed as a social and collaborative hub—one where groups of various sizes are encouraged to get together, share knowledge and foster each other’s ideas. You can’t do that in a cubicle city.

Take the IDEO office pictured and described in this blog post. This aesthetically pleasing and comfortable atmosphere offers spaces for people to go off and work individually, but it also offers numerous collaborative spaces that have more to them than a meeting room with boring rectangle table surrounded by leather backed chairs. Looking at this photo, it has much in common with the MFX Partners’ office in Kitchener, Ontario’s core. And we can all attest to the fact that it’s the type of environment that not only supports creativity and innovation—but also stimulates new ways of thinking every day!

Does your workspace resemble any of these ten seriously cool workplaces?

Of course, none of these examples will apply to every company and every industry exactly. But, you have to admit; there’s room for most companies to improve their physical workspaces with just a little bit of money and creativity. After all, the actual physical workspace at your place of business is one of the most overlooked, yet vital factors for encouraging the type of design thinking that stimulates positive change.

What inspiration could you take from some of the workplace designs shown here?

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