Human-centred design (HCD) in branding™
Many organisations realise that becoming more human-centred is key to dealing with today’s innovation challenges.
Human-centred design (HCD) is a group of methods and principles aimed at supporting the design of useful, usable, pleasurable and meaningful products or services for people. At StoryfulBrands, we use these principles to create positioning scenarios that drive the conceptual design of a brand.
By bridging human-centred design and brand storytelling, we could develop brands that shift from a focus on physical ergonomics, usability, context of use and user goals, to a focus on emotions and user experiences.
Furthermore, human-centred strategic innovation requires a holistic systems approach.
“Addressing the interests of all human beings that are part of the innovation system will contribute to positive strategic impact. This systems perspective is a core characteristic of HCD. We then need to ask ourselves who should be at the centre of the strategic application of HCD. This is not just about users anymore, but about customers, service providers, citizens and other stakeholders, including people that make decisions with regard to strategy, business models, and organisational transformation. This broadens the perspective of the human beings at the centre of innovation from ‘dependent stakeholder groups’ such as end-users – who have little influence on the system design but have strong interest in its outcome - to dominant stakeholder groups – including clients -, who have considerable power to influence design and who take the strategic decisions” (van der Bijl-Brouwer and Dorstapud, 2017, apud Dul, et al., 2012, Bruder et al. 2012).
