ITL Reading Synthesis Project
User Centred Design
User centred design (UCD) is the method of placing the end user of the product at the heart of the design process. This varies from the standard form of design thinking by emphasising considerably more on design ethnography. The actions that we take when we interact with a product being the central influence allows for innovation of not only products, but industries. The Apple versus IBM in the 80’s is the perfect example of this. Apple were designed with what the consumer wanted, they were the first computers with computers and they were easy to use. Just as this changed Apple’s business, it changed the industry of microcomputing. What makes Apple brilliant at product design, is they put your user experience at the forefront of their design process. Where you have to learn how things work on Windows or on Android, iPhones and iPads are used everyday by an age range of 0-100+. Because they are easy to use. Although user centred design may not result in the most amount of features, it will result in the most used features, as they allow for an optimal user experience.
To see the level of importance put on UCD, as opposed to ‘Design Thinking’,we should look to LUMA Institute, the industry leader in UCD, in comparison with IDEO, leaders in design thinking. The LUMA Institute have challenged the IDEO ethos in the way they hesitate to use the term ‘design thinking’. The LUMA institute are education consultants which work with companies to equip employees for human centred design innovation. ‘Innovating people for human centred design’ is how the LUMA Institute present their concepts and their teaching encourages ‘looking, understanding and making’ in a variety of industries. “Though LUMA occupies the same philosophical space as IDEO, the popular leader among design/business strategy firms, LUMA focuses more on teaching” (Designenvy, 2011). Though IDEO use some design ethnography in their process to understand the target audience for their designs,like in “The Deep Dive”, http://youtu.be/2Dtrkrz0yoU, LUMA focuses on putting people at the very heart of the design process. We can see the benefits of LUMA’s strategy in product design throughout many industries. This ethos for design can create vastly better results than merely imagining what a user needs. Here is a talk by LUMA CEO, Chris Pacione, about innovation, http://youtu.be/DjQlupn5cTw .
User centred design can pose a few obstacles for its application to Craft Farming, the project I’m involved with. For example, who is the end user? It would be easy to say the consumer, but that would only be part of the answer. Our project works the the middle out. We are looking at how food gets from the farm to the consumer. So the design of our final project will have to take both farmers and the consumers as users. This will allow us to cater for more contributing factors, as the system that we present will be designed to be simple to use for both ends. In our project, UCD is the most important point of view to take. If you were to look at the current artisan food market in Ireland, there already exists a wide range of products, so why hasn’t it taken off? By focusing on both ends of the system we can create a holistic solution. In Harvest 2020, they have laid out possible interests that the food industry and the consumers. For food producers, better alignment with the environmentally conscious consumers. For consumers, transparent methods of food production with full traceability and sustainability auditing could help with an understanding of food and the food system. We can address problems such as these, that both producers and consumers have with the current system and hopefully create an avenue for real innovation in the Irish food system.