Tensions in human-centred design

In this position paper, Marc Steen argues that in human-centred design, researchers and designers try to cooperate with and learn from the potential users of what they are developing, aiming to create products or services that fit users' practices, needs and preferences. He identifies two tensions inherent in this way of working: practitioners must combine and balance users' knowledge and ideas with their own, and they must combine and balance attention to current or past practices with attention to envisioning alternative or future ones. The paper discusses six human-centred design approaches, participatory design, ethnography, the lead user approach, contextual design, codesign and empathic design, as different ways of coping with these two tensions, and draws on examples from practice to illustrate them. Steen concludes by encouraging human-centred design practitioners to reflect critically on their practices, methods and own involvement so they can more consciously and mindfully navigate the tensions. Published in CoDesign, 7(1), 45 to 60. Credits: Steen, M. (2011). Tensions in human-centred design. CoDesign, 7(1), 45–60. http://doi.org/10.1080/15710882.2011.563314