Human-Centered Design Taxonomy: Case Study Application With Novice, Multidisciplinary Designers
LuEttaMae Lawrence
Abstract
Human-centered design (HCD) is a design-based pedagogy that provides students with opportunities to empathize with views that are unlike their own. While this has been identified as a useful design approach, learning and applying HCD is challenging for students without design expertise. In response to the current lack of consensus on how to teach HCD, we developed an HCD taxonomy that outlines five design spaces and practices of students engaging in this form of learning. In the case study described herein, we analyzed a novice, multidisciplinary design team’s HCD process to examine the efficacy of the taxonomy. Our findings indicate that students build HCD practices over time and that these practices should be interconnected to achieve higher levels of integration.