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Usability (or user-centric design) is one of our key focusses — not just for our websites, but it is also a philosophy that pervades every area of our design and development work, including our marketing efforts… To make something “usable” — something that “works” effectively and efficiently without any fuss or difficulty, communicates the right message and obtains the desired response — is an imperative component for successful books, brochures, posters, advertisements, videos, flyers, business cards, websites, reports, products and any other brand “touch point” (an item that consumers interact with in some way — physically, visually, aurally, etc).

If you want your brand, business, product or service to be truly successful, you must hold high the value of human centered design and development … unless your target market is robotic of course!

Please see the Wikipedia article on user centered design for further information about this topic.

Q Where did this concept of humanized design come from?
A It came from you, from everyone — from people’s desire for a more ‘usable’, functional, natural, intuitive world. A desire which has grown significantly with the increased use of the internet for so many facets of our daily lives.

Q How long has it been around as an approach to design?
A There have always been talented, intuitive designers whose designs are ‘humanized’. However most have not held it as a conscious approach, and it has only recently started to become a geniune priority for some … I believe we were the first … maybe.

Q What is your definition of humanized design?
A Well, humanized design as a general concept is basically just design that is focussed on how a human would best interact with the thing being designed. It gets a bit ‘fuzzy’ up at that top level, so it’s easier for me to break it up into it’s various derivatives: humanized industrial design — which I am not an expert on but includes primary approaches like ergonomics; then there’s humanized websites — something I’ve been doing for a while now — which includes design standards, the psychology of interaction online, colour psychology, cultural considerations and many other aspects — some of which can be found on our site makeithuman.com; after that there’s humanized marketing and advertising which mainly involves the use of human language appropriate to the target market of that product or service, as well as the use of highly effective viral phrases known as ‘memes’ and a strong focus on ‘hypnotic’ call-to-action strategies.

Q Would you say this approach is just a temporary ‘phase’ in design history?
A Sure! About as temporary as humans! [laughs] … But seriously, this isn’t a concept to be superceded by something else, new, better, different, etc. It’s more like a new baseline for approaches yet to come, but definitely not one that will change significantly – unless we as a human race change significantly. And my idea of significant change in the human race would probably see the end of this dark hole we call the internet and bring in a much more ‘transparent’ network … strangely enough, I can see how that is already happening to some degree with the mass eruption of social media. But I’m off track here aren’t I? … Sorry, what was the question? [laughs]

Q Do you see a need to get out there and ‘preach the gospel’ of humanized design?
A No. I think it is a wildfire ‘meme’ in itself and will not need any encouragement to spread, it’s just a matter of time … and besides, the idea of public speaking makes me want to hide in a small cupboard and never come out! [laughs] … Also, I don’t need to convince anyone that a design should, if possible, be humanized — unless of course it’s a design for machine-to-machine interaction and nothing more. Take for instance the code behind a website. If there was never a need for any human to interact with the pure code behind a website, and it was simply to be parsed, interpreted and displayed by a web browser or WYSIWYG editor, then all the code could be run together in one long string and never need any breaks or extra spaces. But that’s just not the case. Developers interact with the code, and as a result, the code is made more usable through a visual ‘humanized’ approach with a heirarchy of spaces, line breaks and notation comments that only show when viewing the code directly. And that’s just the code behind the website or application itself. It’s even more crucial to the success of a website or online application for it to be humanized on the outside because the majority of the ‘users’ of that site or app will only ever interact with it’s front-end.

Q If you were out there preaching humanization to young designers, what might you say?
A [pauses] … I think I would simply suggest that they study themselves for a while. Consider the designs that they and others love and ask what are the common factors of these designs. But primarily consider how they interact with the design, where they look for things, where they intuitively think elements should belong and in what colour they seem most ‘right’… To be free of the idea that ’standards’ are always right, and yet, when something seems absolutely natural and intuitive, then to make a new, more definite standard out of it … Also, consider the target audience and their cultural inclinations, or the age group and their strengths and weaknesses, or the gender and their preferences etc … Ultimately, it is about being 110% focussed on who will be interacting with the design and how to give them what you want in the way that they will most easily understand and relate to.

Q Any final thoughts about humanized design to share?
A Keep it simple. Always simplify as much as possible … I mean, who has time to work out how to use something new these days? Certainly not me!

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Please contact the team at Make it Human for more information.

If you would like a simple strategy to capture the the hearts and minds of your target audience, send us a message today.

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1. Easily engage your target audience (not just random “visitors”)
2. Be optimised for what real people are actually searching for
3. Invites people to interact and respond in the way they feel comfortable with
4. Communicate a clear message appropriate to your target audience
5. Give people what they want and need
6. People want to connect again and again
7. Speaks in emotional, human language
8. Natural, simple paths from information to interaction

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Please contact us for more information about Humanized Websites.

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1. Speaks with the people, not ‘at’ the people
2. Lives both as one of the crowd, AND as a clear voice that attracts and moves the crowd
3. Intimately knows, understands and relates to the people who are most likely to support your brand/business
4. Initiates real interaction with valuable, unique conversation – not duplicated, meaningless, robotic responses

Please contact us for more information about how Humanized Social Media can help your business.