Human-Centered Design

Human-centered design (HCD) is a framework that places people as the center of focus during the whole design process. Information architects (IAs) and UX designers help to create a human-centered future, where the user’s goals and needs serve as the guidelines for design and development. In this chapter, we present an overview of HCD and define the processes and teams that deliver highly effective and usable UX designs. The processes we cover involve the front end and behind the scenes work to identify people’s needs and balance them with business and technical concerns, to improve usability and maximize the outcomes of an information space.