HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN

Solid Design uses a Human Centred Design approach to identify user needs and objectives, evaluate ergonomics and document use cases for a new product design project. This approach runs throughout our engineering design process to create a product with high usability for easy adoption. We ask the right questions to create the right development strategy for your company and design a winning customer experience that gets the right product to market.

USER CENTRED DESIGN VS. HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN

For most products, all users will be human, although not all humans may be users of the envisioned product. For most product design efforts our focus will be on particular users, trained in the environment where the product is intended to be used. This allows us to understand and document the demands, desires and preferences of those users in the application environment targeted for the new product. Going back to those users to review conceptualised approaches and to test out prototypes allows us to gain a thorough understanding of user needs and desires.

Voice of the Customer

Voice of the customer (VOC) is a term used in business and information technology (for example through ITIL) to describe the in-depth process of capturing customer’s expectations, preferences and aversions. Specifically, the voice of the customer is a market research technique that produces a detailed set of customer wants and needs, organized into a hierarchical structure, and then prioritized in terms of relative importance and satisfaction with current alternatives.[1] 

Voice of the customer studies typically consist of both qualitative and quantitative research steps. They are generally conducted at the start of any new product, process, or service design initiative in order to better understand the customer’s wants and needs, and as the key input for new product definition, Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and the setting of detailed design specifications.[1]

Solid Design hears the Voice of the Customer, the end user of the product. This is essential to creating usable, efficient, fit for purpose products that are safe for the user as well as people involved with the manufacture, distribution and servicing of the product.

[1] Gaskin, Stephen P.; et al.  “Voice of the Customer” (PDF). mit.edu. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved 2018-03-25.