Human-centred design: 5 resolutions for 2024 šš
Start the year with some good habits to build great customer experiences
Welcome to The Navigator š§ - a newsletter about people, technology and design for business leaders who want to make meaningful change. Iām Sarah Ronald, and I write this newsletter with the Nile team. If this email was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here to receive it straight to your inbox.
Hello from a slightly chilly Circus Lane! āļø
Is it too late to wish you a Happy New Year?
Probably, so instead weāre kicking off 2024 with five resolutions that will help you make better, more strategic, more human-centred design decisions this year.
Wishing you all the best as you navigate your week,
āĀ
Resolve to do these 5 things
Thereās no sign of the cost of living decreasing, so people are making more deliberate choices when it comes to the products and services they use.
Businesses are conscious of their spending too, and most organisations want to find ways to reduce their costs and make processes more efficient.
This doesnāt have to be a bad thing. With human-centred design, you can balance creating experiences that enrich customersā lives with meeting those hard-nosed business objectives.
Hereās five resolutions you can make this year to move in the right direction.
1. Put people at the heart of design
Just as the name suggests, human-centred design is focused on people ā so it's only fair that they get an invite to the design process right from the word go. That way, when it comes to content, features, and functionality, youāll be ensuring your product or service is actually built around real needs.
Empathy lies at the heart of human-centred design. Talk to the people youāre designing for, research and understand their needs and goals, their motivations and expectations, and any hurdles in their way.
At the end of the process, the product or service you build will be more rounded and solve real world problems, so it wonāt just be more usable, but more meaningful to the people using it too.
In turn, this makes it more resilient in the marketplace ā and, by properly understanding customer needs, youāll also be able to discover efficiencies and digitise existing processes, reducing the total cost of operation.
2. Address accessibility and inclusion
When youāre designing for people, make it a case of the more, the merrier. In 2023, Nile acquired inclusion and accessibility experts Dig Inclusion, whose mantra is more relevant than ever: āThings work better when they work for everyoneā. In 2024, products and services should be accessible and inclusive to as many people as possible, with your design process informed by a range of abilities and backgrounds.
That doesnāt always mean making one thing to rule them all. It can make sense to build one service that meets the needs of the majority, and additional journeys ā perhaps with more touchpoints and less automation ā adapted to the needs of other groups.
But it does mean thinking about accessibility and inclusion from the start. The European Commission has stated that āafterthoughtā technologies like accessibility overlays are not an appropriate response to the accessibility challenge.Ā
With increasing regulation like the FCA Consumer Duty and the upcoming EU Accessibility Act, learning to build services with inclusion in mind is not just the right thing to do, itās increasingly a requirement.
Watch Dig Inclusionās webinar on the recently updated web content accessibility guidance in WCAG 2.2.
3. Share your work
If youāre working on transformative projects, share your work wider than just your immediate team.
Getting your work in front of the wider organisation builds understanding and recognition of what youāre doing, and you could gain insight from other parts of the business that adds value. You might even save yourself or others from reinventing the wheel.
When youāre working on a service or product that will have an impact, itās also important to engage and collaborate with business functions like legal and compliance.
Getting their input can help highlight and address challenges early on, and will also help get these critical teams on-side when youāre delivering transformative, changemaking projects.
4. Donāt forget the bigger picture
Human-centred design is all about problem-solving and achieving changes in customer behaviour. While these outcomes are a yardstick of success and value, you also need to align your thinking with your organisation's business objectives.Ā
Building a solution thatās viable and sustainable in the long run means striking a balance between what delivers for your customers and what matters to your business.
Equally, make sure the research you do with people feeds back into the business. Human-centred design can be a really powerful way to understand evolving customer behaviours and preferences, especially in times of change. Sharing what youāve learned with the wider organisation will help other teams focus on what matters most, and inform the wider strategy for what comes next.
5. Get out more
Sometimes a change of perspective can reinvigorate your work. So why not attend more events, see what others are doing, and learn something new?
Nile, Dig Inclusion and our partners run in-person events and webinars throughout the year. Last year these included No Harm Done?, our breakthrough series on design, ethics and AI in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh; our sessions on the Future of Inclusivity, and our collaboration during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with Adam Smithās Panmure House and Bloombergās Merryn Talks Money podcast.
Weāve got lots more planned for this year, which weāll share here in The Navigator. And if youāre not already following us on LinkedIn, thatās another great way to find out whatās happening.
So, as we look forward to the next 12 months, let's ask ourselves: How can we put peopleās needs at the heart of our services, without losing sight of the business drivers?
Hereās to making 2024 a year of strategic, transformative, human-centred design.
Nile News
Weāll be hosting the next Edinburgh UX Meetup at Nileās offices on 29 February. If youāre within striking distance, join the group on Meetup to make sure you donāt miss it.
Thatās all for this issue - if you like The Navigator, please spread the word by sharing it with your friends and colleagues:
About Nile
Nile is a Strategic Design team that helps deliver human-centred change in highly regulated industries. Our methods engage employees and customers with new technology and ways of working. Our outcomes help you save money and improve your business performance.
If you think we can help your teams, reply directly to this email (they come straight to my inbox), or reach out to someone specific via our website.
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