March 18, 2022
March 18, 2022
Contributor: Robert Snow
Understand the benefits, limitations and capabilities to inform successful adoption.
In short:
Human-centered design (HCD) started as a way to enhance the user experience of hardware, but is now most commonly used to refer to the design approach that focuses on the user. In a government setting, it signals a relentless focus on the user or stakeholder at the center of the government service, from citizens (commuters, drivers, pedestrians, patients, caregivers, students, etc.) to the government workforce itself. HCD encourages the involvement of these stakeholders through the design process of government services.
By 2023, 60% of governments will integrate HCD techniques into their digital service design process.
“The use of agile and HCD processes for service design will become a standard combination of techniques for governments to improve service delivery,” says Gartner Senior Director Analyst Dean Lacheca.
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HCD adoption takes time — in the 2021 Gartner Digital Transformation Divergence Across Government Sectors Survey, 54% of respondents indicated deploying HCD and another 30% put their timelines within three years. With this in mind, focus on proper training of key business and IT leaders to build a base knowledge of HCD and associated techniques.
While the concept of design thinking is at the heart of HCD, it is important to note that HCD does not necessarily advocate a specific design process. Instead, it’s best applied in the involvement of key stakeholders throughout the process so as to consider all perspectives when identifying or clarifying the problem that must be solved, and designing a solution to address the problem and meet the needs of all stakeholders. To encourage the adoption of human-centered design for digital services:
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The most advanced customer-experience-focused government organizations are incorporating the concepts of total experience into their designs. They have established frameworks and formal processes that govern how they apply HCD to their design process.
Less advanced government organizations adopt an unstructured or ad hoc approach, including some aspects of citizen research, into their processes. Here, CIOs need to take a proactive role in the successful adoption of HCD.
Some governments complement HCD with a phased approach to digital solution delivery to support the “verification” concept. This includes the use of alpha and/or beta releases of new approaches to government services as part of the standard process. Depending on the nature of the solution, citizens and stakeholders can opt into the trial or be included in this phase as part of an A/B testing approach.
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Recommended resources for Gartner clients*:
Human-Centered Design Essential to Digital Government
An Insight Into the Digital Design Process for CIOs
How CIOs Should Deal With Digital Design as a Business Function
*Note that some documents may not be available to all Gartner clients.