Human–Centered Design Fall 2020 Wrapped
Is it possible to learn complete empathy in a semester? No. Can a designer learn every human-centered research technique and best practices in four short months? Definitely not. However, what you can do in one semester is experiment, connect, research, and grow. Partaking in these exercises is a great start to getting closer to being an amazing human–centered designer. I feel that this was my experience over these last few months.
The University of Arkansas’ BFA in Graphic Design program is rigorous. Seasoned professors and inflexible course schedules make this degree path a hard one to follow, but unquestionably a rewarding one. I was barely an artist, let alone a designer, when I started in the program my sophomore year. But I can say without hesitation, after years of critique, practice, and many mistakes, that I am indeed a designer now. The human-centered design course I just completed has particularly pushed me closer to realizing my true potential as a creative, thinker, and human. I can’t say that I have mastered empathy by taking this class. But what I can say is that I have learned to take time and space during every project to make sure that the users are heard, appreciated, and at the center of every solution. Getting to take a deep-dive into the many research techniques available to designers, and getting to employ many of them, has been incredibly rewarding as well. There is a delicate push and pull when working with real users or clients that I am also very thankful I got to experience for the first time while working in this class.
Finding out that we would be working on a semester long project seemed like a nightmare at the beginning of this course. How could I possibly focus on one objective for so long? And to find out it was going to be a group project as well?! No way could I survive this. Yet, here I am. I survived and I am actually better for the experience. Working with a small group for so long turned out to be very rewarding. It took a while, but after a few weeks we each organically fell into roles which helped us to work more effectively as a team. This project gave me a real chance to step up as a leader and take charge of a project. It was just a small taste of being in a director position, but I found that I not only liked it but was good at it, too. We learned so much about our community during this work, and I feel closer to is as a result of our research.
In conclusion, this was an amazing class. I was tired, frustrated, and overwhelmed a lot of the time but all of these seemingly adverse moments actually helped me to grow as both a student and designer. The biggest takeaway for me after finishing this course is that while human-centered design is a practice all on its own, it is also an invaluable technique that should be adopted by all creators and researchers from any field. Recognizing users as the humans they are, and really listening to what they have to say, makes for better community-based solutions every time!
My Amazing HCD Professor: Marty Lane