Understanding Context as a Critical Mandate
One of the fundamental values of the human-centered design (HCD) process is inclusion: the end-users or beneficiaries of a product or service are given a voice so that their wants, needs, and perceptions are taken into consideration. This allows for greater resonance of that product or service with its target audience initially, as well as lending credence to the notion that it will facilitate sustainability and impact in the long-term.
In order for HCD to be truly impactful, and by extension transformational, one should seek to engage with end-users in their context. Spending time getting a feel for the environment in which people live and work affords the opportunity to better frame the drivers behind perceptions and behaviors. This is particularly the case when applying the HCD process in the development space.
We work across diverse markets throughout the world, including low and middle income countries. This exposure and experience makes us uniquely positioned to speak to the developmental and societal challenges unique and inherent to diverse settings, as well as to the value of taking a human-centered design approach to crafting interventions to address them. This has manifested in a host of initiatives spanning sectors as diverse as sexual and reproductive health, education, water & sanitation, financial inclusion, tech, and more.
The emergent throughline across all of these seemingly disparate projects and focus areas is quite simple: in order to understand a challenge or issues, you first have to develop a keen, holistic understanding of its environment. Otherwise, the potential solution you are designing or developing may fail to account for certain user perceptions, needs, or constraints that limit the solution’s potential impact.
Understanding a context requires a whole lot more than researching it at a distance and coming to terms with the tangible issues perpetuating a particular challenge or problem. It requires a certain level of professional and personal vulnerability in that one needs to abdicate their role as “teacher” and embrace their role as “student” instead. By this, we mean one needs to accept that those experiencing a challenge within their context will understand it more deeply and intimately than you will. It requires listening and proactively sharing insights and conclusions in an effort to ensure that they are in fact correct, as well as a willingness to pivot to whatever direction these new insights mandate.
It can be challenging at times to physically visit certain contexts in order to research them and embed oneself with the people therein. Thankfully there are a host of virtual tools (such as Jamboard and Miro) that, when coupled with a video conferencing service, can allow for long-distance collaboration. That said, one should always strive to develop empathy with those they are working with and for by experiencing their lived reality to the greatest extent possible.
