About the course

Human-Centered Design

Designed by Virginia Hamilton, this course gives participants a substantive overview of the human-centered design framework and offers opportunities to practice applying concepts from the course to your work.

We share practical knowledge and lessons about human-centered design, including:

  • The value of Human-Centered Design and how it can be applied to problems and opportunities in government
  • Framing and scoping a problem with a human-centered lens
  • Using frameworks like empathy interviewing, journey maps, How Might We statements and personas to define a problem and ideate solutions
  • Prototyping and testing ideas to gather feedback and iterate

19 videos

This course complies with WCAG2.1 web accessibility standards

At-your-own pace

Certificate of completion that may be applied to your state learning requirements

Course materials tailored to the government sector

Innovative activities to apply lessons to your own work

Course curriculum

1. Human-Centered Design Process

Develop an understanding of the human-centered design process, including processes and design tools for each step.

2. Empathize

Gain experience applying human-centered design tools to solve a problem.

3. Define

Develop an understanding of the data synthesis, including affinity mapping. Learn to apply methods from the define process step to develop a “How Might We” statement and personas.

4. Ideate

Apply methods from the ideate process to generate and evaluate ideas and develop a concept solution.

5. Prototype + Test

Develop an understanding of rapid prototyping. Apply methods from the prototyping and testing process to prototype and test a concept with a person who will be impacted.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.