Characterizing Competencies for Human-Centered Design

Abstract

Employees and employers alike increasingly value human-centered design, as it can drive innovation across a wide range of industries. With the growing interest in understanding human-centered design processes as they apply in different professions, there is a rising need to recognize the specific competencies necessary to perform these jobs well. Though there is a body of research on how people discover, create, and use design methods, there is a lack of understanding of what core competencies are necessary for people to apply these methods. Previous interactions with target users of theDesignExchange, an interactive community-driven portal to support design researchers and practitioners, have demonstrated a desire for increased awareness of the competencies required for employability and for successful design practice. This paper reports on a portion of an expansive competency-finding project aimed at identifying the core set of competencies that human-centered design practitioners need and employers seek. In this paper, we present our lists of cultivated mindsets, specialized disciplinary skills, contextualized tasks, and basic skills in human-centered design. These lists represent a first pass at identifying the essential and underlying competencies a practicing or aspiring human-centered designer must have in order to perform their current or future design tasks. The work we present in this paper serves as a preliminary starting point for future research interviews with design practitioners and employers, as we seek to understand human-centered design competencies.

Empathic accuracy in design: Exploring design outcomes through empathic performance and physiology

“…The use of the term empathy has steadily increased over the past two decades in academic journals dealing with the business world (Köppen & Meinel 2015). This term is widely used in design approaches such as human-centred design or design thinking, both of which have been associated with successful projects or businesses (Brown 2009;Kramer, Agogino & Roschuni 2016). However, there is no widely accepted and consistently used definition of empathy in design.…”

Where do professionals find sustainability and innovation value? Empirical tests of three sustainable design methods

“…Studies have also found managers often prefer using multiple strategy tools at once (Jarratt & Stiles 2010;Wright, Paroutis & Blettner 2013), and this helps drive innovation (Andriopoulos & Lewis 2010). Because design teams are acknowledged to combine multiple methods, traditional design methods have been deconstructed to measure component-level innovation value (Shah et al 2003;Hernandez, Shah & Smith 2010;Kramer, Roschuni & Agogino 2016); some studies deconstruct even further to substages of ideation techniques (Gonçalves, Cardoso & Badke-Schaub 2016). Such deconstruction allows practitioners to be more flexible and mindful in their application of design practices (Cardin 2013).…”

“…Terminology is less consistent on mental activities. While some use 'mindsets' (Horth & Vehar 2012;IDEO.org 2015;Kramer et al 2016;da Costa et al 2019 (Telenko, Seepersad & Webber 2008;Knight & Jenkins 2009;Telenko & Seepersad 2010), 'framing' (Cross 2004;Björklund 2013), 'internal logic' (Wright et al 2013), or 'principles' (Telenko et al 2008;Brink, Destandau & Hamlett 2009b;Oehlberg et al 2012). Abstract overarching concepts are often called design 'paradigms' (Fuad-Luke 2008;De Pauw et al 2010).…”

Observing network characteristics in mass collaboration design projects

“…In this work, skills are assigned based on each individual's working title, allowing for a slight overlap of abilities between disciplines. The development of a more complete skill decomposition is currently an active research topic (Kramer, Agogino & Roschuni 2016); however, it is outside the scope of this work. The creation of the competency vectors allows for the evaluation of the collaborative ability of each individual.…”