What’s the Difference Between Human-Centred Design and User Experience Design?
--
Read more about creativity at francescaelisia.com. For tips on living a creative life, sign up for my twice-monthly newsletter.
Creating meaningful experiences through problem-solving
In my work with clients and design students, I’m frequently asked, “What is the difference between human-centred design and user experience design?”
Here’s my 1-minute reply:
- Human-centred design is a framework that considers human perspectives throughout the design process.
- User experience design is the design of multisensory experiences, typically at the interface between humans and technology. It is one of many design disciplines that takes a human-centred approach.
Both are focused on designing meaningful and useful things for people. Let me take the opportunity to share more detailed definitions and highlight a few of the key differences.
Human-Centred Design
Human-centered design (HCD) is a design and management framework that develops solutions to problems by involving the human perspective in all steps of the problem-solving process. Human involvement typically takes place in observing the problem within context, brainstorming, conceptualizing, developing, and implementing the solution. (Source)
Human-centred design is not exclusive to any design discipline. In addition to UX designers, industrial designers, furniture designers, and even architects can take a human-centred approach to their work if they wish.
Those using human-centred design in their work are often trying to make an impact in the lives of others through design. They make and stay in contact with users and customers and get feedback along the way.
I often point my students to The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design by IDEO.org. If you are interested in learning more, this free online course by IDEO.org and the Acumen Fund is a great place to start.
User Experience Design
User experience design is the process of enhancing user satisfaction with a product by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction with the product. User experience design encompasses traditional human–computer interaction (HCI) design, and extends it by addressing all aspects of a product or service as perceived by users. (Source)
Donald A. Norman coined the term user experience when he was Vice President of the Advanced Technology Group at Apple in the mid-1990s.
I invented the term because I thought human interface and usability were too narrow. I wanted to cover all aspects of the person’s experience with the system including industrial design, graphics, the interface, the physical interaction, and the manual.
— Donald A. Norman (Source)
The facets of user experience I typically reference are those within Peter Morville’s UX Honeycomb. When designing experiences, I consider each facet in order to measure success. I always try to create a design that is useful, usable, desirable, valuable, findable, accessible, and credible from the user’s perspective.
As we move forward, UX designers continue to be involved in creating interfaces that are multi-sensory, engaging sight, voice, hearing, and touch. The methods of the discipline allow designers to go way beyond graphical user interface design, into cross-device and spatial experiences.
Both human-centred design and user experience design are focused on solving problems for people. As long as we have problems and access to technology, we’ll have designers trying to find solutions.
Read more about creativity at francescaelisia.com. For tips on living a creative life, sign up for my twice-monthly newsletter.
On the prowl for a good book? Take a peek at my Creativity Reading List.
Lost the spark? Check out my previous post, 28 Ways to Fire-up a Creative Mindset.
