As we approach a new year, we’ve been reviewing what worked and what didn’t work in our processes (we tend to do a bit of this after ever project, see Principle 4, but I won’t get ahead of myself) and we’ve been considering what to change–both in what we offer and how we offer it–to improve the experience for you, the experience for us, and the final product we deliver.

So in the spirit of low-pressure, continuous improvements and extremely low-key fresh starts (nobody likes a high-pressure New Year situation), now seems like a great time to talk a bit about how we approach our work, regardless of the client or the size of the project, and why we do it. We work with a diverse clientele and offer a variety of services, but no matter the job, we’re always guided by the same set of basic principles.

It says in our Instagram bio, “In the age of internet overwhelm, we aim to simplify.” Human-centred design is how we do it. Put another way, my elevator pitch for human-centred design is this: the continuous march toward simplicity and specificity.

What is Human-Centred Design?

Human-centred design is a framework made up of four basic principles that can be applied to everything from physical products, like electric toothbrushes, and digital services, like marketing websites, all the way up to complex systems like healthcare administration and voting systems. The four principles are as follows:

1. Solve the right problem
2. Focus on people
3. Think system-wide
4. Test, refine, test again

Let’s take them one at a time.

Solve the Right Problem

Have you watched The Bear? During one of the scenes where mean-girl chef Joel Mchale is berating Carmy, he mocks him for all the different elements he has on the plate. Are you going to add another sauce? Another element? How about another garnish? etc, etc. Kitchen trauma aside, this kind of approach to creation is a good analogue for how we apply the first principle of human-centred design to brand building and web design.

Keeping things as simple as possible by removing all the unnecessary elements lets us see what’s important. We’ve had people come to us looking for a custom site, but their list of technical needs can be easily met with plugins and a good quality pre-made theme. If we recognize that we don’t need custom code (at least not at this stage) we can see that the budget is better spent on copy writing and newsletter development to help their people find and learn about them. Other times it’s the opposite: there’s a plugin for every feature you think you might want, but what your brand actually relies on to stand out is a bold, unique visual experience that just can’t be achieved without custom design and interactivity.

To identify the right problem, and then solve the right problem, you first need to be able to see it. Once you can see clearly, it’s a lot easier to focus your efforts on the areas that will make the most difference. Say you’re getting excellent testimonials from your customers, but you aren’t getting enough new customers to sustain yourself. The data says that while certain metrics like bounce rate (the percentage of people who read more than just the homepage of your website) are great, your overall traffic is low. You could create the most beautiful, innovative visual design, and your traffic won’t improve because the real problem is that your marketing strategy is targeting the wrong people and your ideal clients are struggling to find you. Solving the right problem saves a lot of headaches and a lot of money.

Focus on People

It can be surprisingly easy to forget this one. Before we started Flegg Creative, I worked exclusively as a coder on a larger team. I didn’t talk to clients and had very little say in the branding or marketing of any given project. I was just given designs to code and problems to solve. It was fun until I started to feel like my work was primarily serving my own curiosities and desires to learn new techniques or try new tools. Developer ego was getting in the way of building for people. The decisions I was making had little to do with the end user, because I had no connection with those users. I decided I wanted to change that. Now I get to be involved in every step of the process, from imagining and planning to designing and building.

Designing for tech instead of designing for people is one of the reasons that things like load time and operating system requirements are a big part of accessibility. It’s also what has led to the constant rise in the cost of computers and phones.

It’s fun to use the latest tools and software, things that can make your life easier as you build websites, help you feel more creative or more efficient. But in the end we’re not doing it for the ease of our own experience as creators. We’re going it for the ease of the experience of our clients and their users. Which means we’re judicious in our selection of tools and tech. If it’s not accessible and usable for our audience and yours, it’s gotta go.

For us, at the end of the day, focus on people really means live in the real world. Humans aren’t perfect (you could probably argue that imperfection is one of our defining characteristics) so if we create with the assumption that no one ever makes mistakes or misses cues or skips an instruction, all we’re doing is making things less accessible for everyone. Human error is a given, so we work toward simplicity, clarity and specificity to make sure the message gets across. When we design for people, it’s not sexy to be mysterious.

Think about systems.

I find this one is actually closely connected to solving the right problem because to find the right problem, you need to see how each piece of your work connects to every other piece. Nothing exists in a vacuum. Whether your project or organization is big or small, you exist within a system. It could be that you combine a brick-and-mortar with online sales or client intakes. Your marketing efforts are primarily in-person and in-print, but you drive traffic to your online newsletter sign up and communicate by email. Mapping out your whole system gives you a clearer idea of where the weak spots are, and what needs to change to address them.

It’s also helpful to think about your system in terms of who is in it. Who are your stakeholders? In other words, who is impacted by your work, by your organization, by what you’re putting out into the world? How will your website redesign or your brand update or your outreach strategy serve all of them? This is especially useful when you have a large and varied audience and you need an approach that can reach all of them, one way or another. Thinking in terms of the whole systems means all the moving parts are treated thoughtfully and intentionally in service of the larger goal.

Iterate (aka Test-and-Try-Again)

The irony is that human-centred design–something predicated on simplicity and usability–is sometimes talked about in pretty jargon-y terms. Things like ideate and iterate. (I know “iteration” is a real word with a pretty reasonable meaning but it’s thrown around so often in tech bro settings that I’ve grown to hate it a little.) But the core idea is that nothing ever stays the same, and that’s ok (desirable, even).

Everything is always changing.

This can sound tiring at first. Nothing is ever done? There is no finish line? But the reality is that nothing in life is ever done, things are always changing, and there will always be lots finish lines, large and small, in the road ahead. And acknowledging this fact as you embark on any project–especially big important projects like a new website–will liberate you from the idea that there is one chance to achieve the single perfect outcome.

The lovely and talented business consultant Sarah Moon talks about rough draft thinking as being the antidote to paralyzing perfectionism, and I find this to be a very helpful concept in many aspects of life an work. I’m frequently guilty of wanting so badly to put only my best foot forward that I end up putting no feet forward (ahem, see this blog). And I find it’s helpful was to frame the idea of iteration, that continuous cycle of observation and improvement.

Yes, it’s good to think about the future, to envision your future needs and goals and start to plan for them, but it’s important to remember that right now, this moment is definitely not your last chance to consider the needs of future you. You can make changes, you can see what works and decide whether you want to go all-in or pivot. You can break things down into steps and stages and tackle one thing at a time (we’re big fans of breaking things down into stages). You can take the pressure off. In the end iteration just means we have lots of chances to come up with brilliant new ideas.

So there it is, the framework we use to guide our decisions and continually refine our process, always working to simplify and clarify. Try looking at your own projects through the lens of human-centred design and see if things come into focus (sorry! not really).