At tonight’s San Francisco Women Speak Tech Speak-up and Meet-up at the Heroku Penthouse, we’ll explore the impact of human-centered design, and how adopting a user-centered, empathy-driven approach creates an incredible competitive advantage for businesses that are able to reap the rewards of this ideology through-out the customer experience. Everything from the moment a prospective customer considers related products and services through to purchase, support, brand loyalty and advocacy is all part of the customer experience. The customer experience makes or breaks your Net Promoter Score (NPS) and directly impacts revenue growth.
1. Design for Humans
Human-centered design (HCD) is defined by its iterative design process where the cycle both begins and ends with the user experience. The starting point of HCD creation is to develop an understanding of user needs, insights, and behaviors through observation or research. Using this basis, a human-centric design can be generated. Once this design is tested, user feedback can be assessed and incorporated into the next iteration of design. The cycle continues—continually seeking to meet current needs and optimize the user experience.
2. Promote an agile, adaptive culture that embraces change and a fail early, fast attitude.
Adapting program designs to become human-centric is a strategic process as much as any other implementation. It should be acknowledged that implementing human-centered design, where it doesn’t already exist, demands change management. In today’s digital world, design thinking is fraught with complexity, ambiguity, and change. Changes in user design preferences and expectations are inevitable, and should be accepted as such. Organizations need to implement change management strategies to be successful in adapting to human-centered design thinking.
3. Customer Experience Depends on Two-Way Multichannel Communications
Taking actions like creating channels for open dialogue with your users and implementers for feedback will help your organization to embrace the nature of continuous change in its user design endeavors. Build a tolerance for early failure and continual testing into your cultural DNA. Customers decide where and when to engage with your brand so be there: be multichannel and create relationships, not one way blasts of information.
Continue the discussion with us, Thursday, March 30th! Register for this Women Speak Tech event here.