“Being a human-centered designer is about believing that as long as you stay grounded in what you’ve learned from people, your team can arrive at new solutions that the world needs.”
-IDEO Field Guide to Human-Centered Design
What is Human-Centered Design Thinking?
Really all it means is putting the people you are serving front and center—learning from them and working in collaboration to develop the most authentic and powerful results. In the case of IDEO and IDEO.org, they are working with people and organizations to solve poverty, hunger, and other large-scale world problems. But these same techniques and processes can be used to guide communications strategy for non-profit organizations.
Human-centered design thinking frames the process Rootid facilitates with clients at the start of new projects, during what we call “the discovery phase.” Sometimes, we refer to what we are doing as ‘strategic art therapy’ but ultimately, it is using art, design and the creative process to develop stronger, cohesive and more thoughtful communications strategies grounded in the core values of our clients’ missions.
We also refer to the discovery process as our ‘sponge phase’ because it is our opportunity to absorb as much information about our clients, their work, and their communities as we can. As a collaborative communications firm, rootid our goal is to become the expert facilitator and guide rather than ‘tell’ clients what they need to do.
By working together and helping our clients tap into their own creativity, inspiration and passion, we are able to develop brand and communications strategies that are more powerful, authentic and ultimately engaging to constituents.
Tips & Resources for Applying Human-Centered Design Thinking to Communication Strategy
- Understanding the core values of the organization & defining what success looks and feels like. This can often be more complicated than you would think. Maybe programs are changing or a shift in organizational culture… Using design thinking to revitalize your brand and then moodboarding your vision (individually or as a group) can be a really affect way to regain consensus amongst key stakeholders.
- Identify who the target audiences are and developing your personas can be a tricky task. You need to allow yourselves to cast your net broadly before narrowing down and (here is a spreadsheet we use to facilitate this process).
- Establish the paths/workflows/journeys your organization wants community members to take toward specified end-goals. Think through the transformation of each persona. (see Tab 3: Persona Journeys from the spreadsheet above.
Download our free resources to help you get started on this project internally!
“Creative confidence is the belief that everyone is creative, and that creativity isn’t the capacity to draw or compose or sculpt, but a way of understanding the world.” -IDEO Field Guide to Human-Centered Design
Our clients are the experts in their fields, our job is to help them communicate what they do more effectively.