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Resources

Human-Centered Design

Human Centered Design

Human-Centered Design

Human Centered Design - Resources

Printed on: 10/10/2026

Find all the resources mentioned in the online course by selecting a module from the dropdown menu below. Have questions? Contact us

Introduction

Welcome to the Human Centered Design course. This first module introduces the concept of human-centered design - a method that prioritizes starting with people to better understand their needs and motivations, ultimately leading to innovation when combined with considerations of viability and feasibility. After this module, you will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the human-centered design process, including processes and design tools for each step.

  • Universal Methods of Design By Bella Martin + Bruce Hanington: 125 Methods and approaches, organized and cataloged so you can understand methods, get references for further reading, and see case studies. It’s a great reference

  • The Field Guide to Human Centered Design The classic IDEO guide to HCD. Lots of case studies, examples, as well as How To. The Guide can be downloaded or used online

  • Observatory of Public Sector Innovation: The OECD’s innovation in government website. It says, in About Us: “Turn the new into the normal. We equip governments and public servants with fresh insights, knowledge, tools, and connections to help them explore new possibilities.” There are lots of frameworks and case studies from around the world

  • Transform with Design edited by Jochen Schwietzer, Sihem Benmahmoud-Jouni, Sebastian Fixon: Stories of how people implemented HCD in various organizations, from large corporations to health care institutions and government. (Shameless promotion: This book has a chapter about Virginia Hamilton)

  • Hack Your Bureaucracy: Get Things Done No Matter What Your Role on Any Team Marina Nitse and Nick Sinai: Not a book about HCD per se, but an important book about getting things done in a government setting, focusing on innovation and creating a modern government

  • Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better Jennifer Pahlka: A description of how government has fallen behind, the issues and problems inherent in government agencies, and examples of how innovation can happen within the constraints of bureaucracies

 

Module 2: Empathize

In this module, you will apply methods from the empathize process step to develop a problem statement, stakeholder map, empathy map, and journey map. After this module, you will be able to collect information from an interview to compose an empathy map, define a human-centered problem that is solution-agnostic, map stakeholders, identify customer groups for research and influential groups for relationship building, and create a journey map that illustrates a customer experience.

Problem Framing

  • What’s Your Problem? Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg: This terrific book introduces a method for framing and reframing problems. It has many examples, activities, and visual prompts to help you ensure you are anchoring on the right problem.

  • Abstraction Ladder Luma Institute’s description of how to use the Abstraction Ladder when looking at a problem, to use various lenses before landing on the right problem. 

  • The 5 Whys A good article about the origin and ways to use the 5 Whys process.

 

Stakeholder Mapping

  • Stakeholder Mapping: The Interaction Design Foundation’s article and video about how to create and use a stakeholder map. 

  • Stakeholder Map: Civic Makers’ tool for stakeholder mapping, both available as a PDF and as a template in Mural

  • Asset Mapping UCLA Center for Health Policy Research: This is an older document (it mentions Mapquest), but very good at the hows and whys of asset mapping in a community. This is within the healthcare context and is very relevant to the government.

 

Empathy Interviews

  • Empathy FieldGuide Stanford d. school: A practical and useful guide to help you plan customer research, from empathy interviews to observation.

  • Conduct Empathy Interviews The Learning Accelerator: A well-designed guide to conducting empathy interviews, with other links and sources to explore. 

 

Journey Mapping

  • Draw Toast Tom Wujak: It's a great video to kick off a journey mapping activity. Wujak uses the process of drawing toast to describe the process of mapping a process.

Module 3: Define

In this module, you will demonstrate an understanding of data synthesis, including affinity mapping, and will apply methods from the define process step to develop a How Might We statement and persona.

Data Synthesis

 

HMW questions

 

Personas

 

Module 4: Ideate

In this module, you will apply methods from the ideate process step to generate and evaluate ideas and develop a concept solution. you will be able to generate different ideas to solve a problem and evaluate a set of ideas based on their customer desirability, technical feasibility, and viability. Additionally, you will be able to develop a solution concept that explains the customer, the problem addressed, how it works, assumptions made, and the next steps for implementation.

Brainstorming

  • Protobot Molly Wilson: An amazing website that helps loosen you up for ideation. Press the Randomise button, and you will have a new invention to figure out. It's great to use before going into a brainstorming session. 


Prioritizing Solutions

  • Prioritization Matrices Neilson Norman Group: This is a good article that describes various ways of prioritizing ideas and which should be moved forward into prototyping.

 

Module 5: Prototype and Test

In this module, you will demonstrate an understanding of rapid prototyping and this knowledge to prototype and test their concept with a customer. you will be able to describe the value and characteristics of rapid prototyping, create a prototyping plan for their concept, create a low-fidelity prototype of their solution, and test their low-fidelity prototype with a customer to gather feedback.

Prototyping and Testing