From startups to Fortune 500 companies, organizations around the world use human-centered design to innovate with intention, crafting solutions that begin and end with the real needs of real people.

In this guide, we’ll unpack human-centered design: where it came from, why it matters, how it works, and how you can apply it. Whether you’re a product designer, entrepreneur, business leader, or curious problem-solver, human-centered design offers a powerful way to reframe challenges and unlock impactful solutions.

Skip to Key Points:

• What Is Human-Centered Design?
• Human-Centered Design vs Design Thinking
• How Does HCD Work?
• 8 Core Principles of HCD
• Common Challenges (And How to Navigate Them)
• Real-World Examples
• 4 Ways to Start Practicing HCD
• Quiz: Finding Your Starting Point

What Is Human-Centered Design?

Human-centered design (HCD) is a creative approach to problem-solving that puts people—users, customers, stakeholders—at the heart of the process. It means designing with people, not just for them. A human-centered approach to design involves stakeholders at every step of the process, not just for inspiration at the beginning or delivery at the end. 

At IDEO U, human-centered design is the backbone of our work. It’s a mindset and methodology that guides everything we do. We teach it the same way we practice it at IDEO, the global design company that helped shape this approach.

What’s the Difference Between Human-Centered Design and Design Thinking?

Human-centered design and design thinking are often used interchangeably, but they’re not quite the same.

• Human-centered design is the broader philosophy or approach that prioritizes people in the design process.

• Design thinking is one expression of that philosophy—a structured, iterative process for generating and testing ideas.

Think of HCD as the mindset and design thinking as the tool kit.

For more on this nuance, check out: What’s the difference between human-centered design and design thinking? 

Where Did Human-Centered Design Come From?

While the roots of HCD can be traced to ergonomics and human factors engineering in the mid-20th century, the modern practice was shaped largely by the design and innovation firm IDEO.

Since its founding in 1978, IDEO has practiced human-centered design, focusing on what people really need and want to create breakthrough products and solutions. 

Looking further back, human factors engineering, also known as ergonomics or engineering psychology, emerged during World War II when designers began to recognize that human limitations (cognitive, physical, perceptual) needed to be considered in the design of aircraft, tools, and control systems. After World War II, the field expanded to explore how people interact with all types of products and technology. 

In the 1990s, IDEO’s human-centered design approach gained widespread recognition and contributed to popularizing the method in the field of design. IDEO championed a multidisciplinary approach that integrated behavioral science, ethnographic research, and design thinking. 

Over time, HCD expanded beyond product design to influence services, systems, organizational change, and even policy and education. Today, it’s used across industries from healthcare to finance to urban planning, as a means of tackling complex challenges with a more inclusive and people-first perspective.

How Does Human-Centered Design Work?

In his book Change by Design, Tim Brown describes the human-centered design process as three overlapping phases, which can be further broken down into the seven steps of the design thinking process.

1. Inspiration

Start by immersing yourself in people’s lives. This includes observing behaviors, listening to stories, and asking thoughtful questions. The goal is to uncover deep insights, not just data points.

2. Ideation

Translate those insights into opportunities. Brainstorm widely, prototype early, and test your ideas quickly with real users. Think of it as creativity with constraints.

3. Implementation

Refine your concepts and bring them to life. This phase includes business modeling, scaling strategies, and long-term measurement, ensuring your ideas are both impactful and viable.

TIP: These phases aren’t always linear. You’ll loop back, reframe, and iterate constantly.

The Role of Language in Human-Centered Design

As you begin practicing human-centered design, mindset matters just as much as method. One powerful yet often overlooked way to shift your mindset? Language.

Language shapes how we see the world. In human-centered design, the words we use can either reinforce empathy or obscure it. One of the most subtle yet powerful shifts is the move away from calling people “users.”

Why 'User' Falls Short

“User” is a term that reduces a person to their interaction with a product or system. While common in digital and technical spaces, it can be dehumanizing. It strips away complexity, personality, and context.

In HCD, we use relationship- and role-centered words. These remind us that we’re designing for real people with real lives, not just optimizing a transaction.

Instead of user, try: employee, senior leader, people, humans, customers, students, caregivers, neighbors, etc. 

Words That Signal Mindset

Here are a few common terms in human-centered design and what they convey:

• Co-create instead of consult → Implies partnership, not hierarchy.

• Prototype instead of build → Signals imperfection and openness to change.

• Insight instead of data → Emphasizes meaning over metrics.

• Challenge instead of problem → Opens up space for possibility.

• Community instead of market → Centers relationships over transactions.

These word choices help cultivate a mindset of empathy, experimentation, and collaboration. They remind us that good design is not just about what we make, but how we talk about the people we’re making it for.

TIP: Want to shift your team's thinking? Start with the vocabulary. It can reset your approach from the inside out.

The Core Principles of Human-Centered Design

Our perspective at IDEO U is that the foundation of human-centered design is not just about following steps. It’s about embracing a mindset. While the design thinking process moves through phases of inspiration, ideation, and implementation, the principles of human-centered design are overarching themes that shape behavior, collaboration, and decision-making at every stage.

These principles appear consistently across IDEO’s work and IDEO U courses.

1. Empathy

The cornerstone of HCD. It means deeply understanding people’s lives, emotions, motivations, and contexts. It’s not about sympathy. It's about seeing the world through someone else’s eyes and using that insight to inform design.

2. Curiosity

Human-centered designers remain open to what they don’t know. They ask bold, unexpected questions and follow those questions toward meaningful discoveries. Curiosity fuels the exploration that precedes innovation.

3. Embracing Ambiguity

Innovation rarely comes with a clear map. Human-centered design encourages comfort with uncertainty—not just tolerating the unknown, but learning to value it. The middle of a messy challenge is often where the richest insights emerge. When designers resist the urge to jump to conclusions and instead stay present in ambiguity, they leave space for deeper understanding and more meaningful breakthroughs.

4. Humility

Designers must leave their assumptions at the door. HCD requires listening with an open mind, resisting bias, and staying receptive to being wrong. 

5. Iteration

Testing and learning are key. Human-centered design encourages quick prototypes and ongoing feedback. You try things, learn from what doesn’t work, and refine what does.

6. Collaboration

Breakthroughs happen when diverse voices and expertise come together. IDEO emphasizes co-creation across teams, users, and communities. HCD values building with, not just for.

7. Optimism

Human-centered design assumes improvement is possible. Even in the face of complex challenges, designers look for opportunities to make things better.

8. Systems Thinking

Designers consider not just isolated experiences, but how their solutions interact with broader systems such as economic, cultural, and ecological. This holistic view helps ensure sustainable, scalable outcomes.

HCD Principles vs. DT Phases

The phases of design thinking (Inspiration → Ideation → Implementation) describe what you do.

The principles of HCD (like empathy, iteration, and systems thinking) describe how you show up and how you think while doing it.

How Does Human-Centered Design Differ from User-Centered Design?

While human-centered design (HCD) and user-centered design (UCD) are closely related and often used interchangeably, there are subtle but important differences between the two:

Scope and Focus

• UCD typically focuses on optimizing the experience for a specific user interacting with a particular product or interface. It emphasizes usability, accessibility, and user satisfaction.
• HCD, on the other hand, takes a broader view. It considers not just users, but all people impacted by a solution, including stakeholders, customers, service providers, and communities. HCD often accounts for emotional, cultural, and systemic contexts.

Systems Thinking

• UCD is often most at home in digital product development, where clear user flows and interface design are key.
• HCD goes beyond the screen. It includes services, systems, experiences, and behaviors and it embraces ambiguity. It’s especially valuable for complex, messy challenges that span multiple stakeholders or touchpoints.

Mindset vs. Method

• UCD tends to be framed as a design process or technique. 
• HCD is a mindset and creative approach to innovation that flexes across disciplines, industries, and problems.

In essence, UCD is a critical part of human-centered design, but HCD casts a wider net. It invites us to think more holistically, challenge assumptions, and design with people.

Common Challenges in Human-Centered Design (And How to Move Through Them)

Even the most motivated teams can encounter challenges when they adopt a human-centered approach. These roadblocks don’t mean you’re doing it wrong. They’re a natural part of shifting how your team thinks and works.

Instead of letting them stall your progress, name them, and then design around them. Below are some of the most common challenges we see, along with practical ways to keep your human-centered practice moving forward.

Challenge	Why It Happens	How to Move Through It
“We don’t have time for this.”	HCD can feel time-intensive, especially during tight deadlines. Teams may want to jump straight to execution.	Start small. Even quick interviews or simple prototypes can spark valuable insights. Treat HCD as a mindset, not an add-on.
“Stakeholders don’t see the value.”	Results-driven orgs may see research and co-creation as intangible or slow.	Show, don’t tell. Share case studies with measurable outcomes. Invite decision-makers into interviews or prototype testing.
“We already know our users.”	Familiarity can breed assumption. Teams may think they’ve already ‘done the research.’	Revisit with fresh eyes. Needs evolve. Practice a beginner’s mindset to uncover new insights.
“Our industry is too regulated/technical for this.”	Heavily regulated orgs (e.g., healthcare, finance) may worry HCD is too soft or risky.	Reframe HCD as risk mitigation. Early testing reduces compliance and adoption issues. Use case studies to build credibility.
“We’re too siloed to collaborate effectively.”	Organizational structures often limit cross-functional input.	Introduce lightweight rituals—like co-creation workshops, shared research reviews, or design crits—to open up collaboration.

The Business Impact of Designing for Real Human Needs

In a world of rapid change, shifting expectations, and growing complexity, innovation must be human-centered to be effective. When your innovation process is rooted in people’s real needs, you’re more likely to create solutions that stick and avoid costly missteps.

Reduce Risk

• Fail faster and learn earlier: Prototyping helps you test assumptions before investing heavily in development.

• Avoid costly rework: It's far cheaper to revise a sketch or beta than to reengineer a finished product that doesn’t meet market needs.

• Speed up smart decision-making: Early feedback uncovers what works and what doesn’t before it’s too late.

Build Organizational Agility

• Boost your innovation capacity: Teams that prototype regularly gain confidence in experimentation.

• Respond quickly to change: Human-centered design helps you stay flexible and seize opportunities tied to new tech or shifting trends.

• Lead the market; don’t lag behind: Organizations with an HCD mindset are better positioned to launch first and adapt fast.

Stay Connected to Evolving Customer Needs

• Understand current and future customer needs: HCD keeps your team closely aligned with real human experiences and shifting needs.

• Sharper messaging and positioning: Understanding people’s needs helps you communicate more clearly and convincingly.

Differentiate in the Marketplace

• Identify unmet needs: HCD surfaces gaps that competitors might miss.

• Deliver true value: When you design for real people, your product-market fit improves, and so does your impact.

Drive Systemic Change

• Design beyond the product: HCD helps you see interconnectivity and design solutions that work across systems.

• Support sustainable innovation: Considering long-term consequences and ripple effects leads to smarter strategy.

• Deliver inclusive solutions: When you design with communities instead of imposing ideas on them, you create solutions that are more inclusive, equitable, and resilient.

HCD connects creativity with impact. It turns intention into innovation, and innovation into real business results.

Want to integrate HCD into your strategy? Explore our Human-Centered Strategy Certificate.

How Human-Centered Design Builds the Skills to Lead and Innovate

As artificial intelligence and emerging technologies automate tasks and enhance productivity, the most valuable human skills are shifting. The future of work will reward creativity, empathy, critical thinking, and strategic problem-solving—capabilities that are deeply human.

Human-centered design elevates these very skills. It trains people to listen deeply, synthesize complex information, collaborate across disciplines, and navigate ambiguity with confidence. 

Whether you're a product manager, educator, team leader, or entrepreneur, practicing HCD helps you:

• Think more creatively and expansively.

• Build on today's human insights vs. data from the past.

• Solve problems systemically, not just symptomatically.

• Build empathy for diverse audiences.

• Discover new opportunities.

• Drive innovation. 

Real-World Examples of Human-Centered Design

1. PillPack: Revolutionizing Pharmacy Services

PillPack, a startup aiming to simplify medication management, partnered with IDEO to redesign the pharmacy experience. Through human-centered design, they developed a service that delivers pre-sorted medications in personalized packets, making it easier for patients to adhere to their prescriptions. The collaboration focused on understanding the daily routines and challenges of individuals managing multiple medications, resulting in a seamless and user-friendly system. Amazon later acquired PillPack for $1 billion.

Read the PillPack case study

2. American Express: Enhancing Financial Flexibility

American Express collaborated with IDEO to develop "Pay It Plan It," a feature allowing cardholders to manage payments more flexibly. By engaging with customers to understand their financial behaviors and needs, the team designed a solution that offers greater control over payment plans, improving user satisfaction and financial well-being. This human-centered approach led to increased customer engagement and loyalty.

Read the American Express case study

3. Nemours Children's Hospital: Designing a Patient-Centric Experience

Nemours Children's Hospital partnered with IDEO to create a healthcare environment centered around patients and their families. By conducting in-depth research with patients, families, and staff, they identified key moments in the patient journey and redesigned spaces to be more welcoming and supportive. Innovations included interactive room features and personalized care team introductions, enhancing the overall hospital experience.

Read the Nemours Children's Hospital case study

These examples demonstrate that HCD isn’t just about clever ideas or feel-good interviews. It’s about meaningful impact.

What Happens Without a Human-Centered Approach?

Sometimes the best way to understand a concept is to examine its opposite. So what does design look like when human needs aren't central to the process? Here are a few signs your process might be out of sync with real human needs and how a human-centered mindset can help:

Pitfall	What It Looks Like	Why It Matters
Tech-First or Business-First Design	Too often, companies make things simply because they can, not because they should. Solutions are driven by internal capabilities or business objectives, not by what users actually need.	Products become over-engineered, hard to use, or irrelevant. Think of an app with dazzling features but no clear purpose, or a service optimized for efficiency but frustrating for customers.
Assumption-Led Problem Solving	Without input from affected people, designers risk solving the wrong problem. Assumptions replace insights, and the process becomes insular.	Solutions are launched with little understanding of real-world context and often fail to gain traction.
Top-Down Decision-Making	When decisions are made in isolation from the communities they impact, solutions can feel imposed or tone-deaf.	This can erode trust and create resistance—especially in complex social or cultural systems. Co-design offers a more inclusive path.
Testing for Validation	One of the most common pitfalls is treating research as a final checkbox rather than a generative practice.	When teams seek validation instead of feedback, confirmation bias creeps in and opportunities for learning are missed. HCD reframes testing as a continuous, discovery-driven process.

 

Human-centered design challenges these tendencies by insisting on collaboration, empathy, and iteration. It shifts the center of gravity from the boardroom to the real world, where the best ideas often come from the people closest to the problem.

Ways to Start Practicing Human-Centered Design

You don’t need to be a designer to use human-centered design. You just need curiosity, empathy, and a willingness to experiment.

Here are four ways to start:

1. Practice Active Listening: Ask open-ended questions. Stay curious. Let people surprise you.

2. Prototype Early and Often: Don’t wait for perfection. Sketch, role-play, or build a quick mockup. Put it in front of people and learn.

3. Build Your Insight Toolkit: Deep insights drive great design. Learn how to gather, synthesize, and act on insights.

4. Invest in Your Growth: Building human-centered skills is an ongoing practice. If you're ready to take the next step, a little structured learning can go a long way.

Still not sure where to start? Take the quick quiz below to find the best path for where you are in your human-centered design journey.

Quiz: Where To Start with Human-Centered Design

Want to begin using HCD but not sure where to focus? Answer these questions to pinpoint a practical starting point.

1. What stage of a project are you currently in?

A) Just starting out or exploring opportunities
B) Deep into building or execution
C) Wrapping up and evaluating impact

2. Which of these challenges resonates most with your current work?

A) We don’t understand our audience well enough
B) We have too many ideas and not enough focus
C) Our solution isn’t getting the traction we expected

3. What are you hoping to achieve with HCD?

A) Build empathy and uncover insights
B) Generate and test ideas quickly
C) Measure outcomes and improve adoption

4. How would you describe your team’s current relationship with the people you serve?

A) We rarely interact directly with them
B) We involve them at key milestones
C) We co-create and test frequently

5. How familiar is your team with HCD tools and mindsets?

A) We’re new to this
B) We’ve used a few methods
C) We’re looking to deepen and scale our practice

6. What kind of change are you trying to drive?

A) A shift in understanding or perspective
B) A breakthrough product or service
C) A sustainable, systems-level transformation

Your Growth Path in Human-Centered Design 

If you chose mostly A’s → start with discovery and insight-building.

You’re in the early stages of building empathy and uncovering insights, the foundation for powerful, human-centered solutions. Focus on uncovering the needs, motivations, and behaviors that drive meaningful solutions. Build your foundation with the Human-Centered Consumer Insights Certificate.

If you chose mostly B’s → dive into prototyping and iteration.

You’re ready to move ideas into action. The next step is making, testing, and learning quickly — and building the creative momentum that drives human-centered innovation. Bring your ideas to life with our Beginner's Design Thinking Course.

If you chose mostly C’s → expand into systems thinking and scaling impact. 

You’re thinking beyond individual solutions. You’re ready to understand and shape the larger systems that influence people's lives. Expand your impact with the Human-Centered Systems Thinking Certificate.

Want to Build a Broader Foundation? 

Whether you’re tackling social impact, product design, or organizational transformation, human-centered design helps you lead with empathy and innovate with clarity.

Build your human-centered design skills with IDEO U's Foundations in Design Thinking Certificate. It’s a great companion to any path you choose.

Learn from the Minds Who Shaped Human-Centered Design

Human-centered design didn’t appear overnight. It was shaped by designers, educators, researchers, and creative leaders who brought together ideas from psychology, business, technology, and the social sciences. Their work laid the foundation for the mindsets and methods we use today.

If you're curious to go deeper, this list is a great place to start whether you're looking for a book to read, a mindset to adopt, or a spark of inspiration from the people who helped define this field.

David Kelley

Founder of IDEO and co-founder of Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (the d.school), Kelley played a central role in shaping design thinking and embedding human-centered design into the culture of innovation. Through IDEO and his academic leadership, he helped empower a new generation of designers to prioritize people in every solution.

Tom Kelley

As a longtime partner at IDEO and co-author of Creative Confidence with his brother David Kelley, Tom Kelley was instrumental in spreading the mindset of human-centered design beyond the design world and into business and leadership. Through his books The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation, he helped demystify IDEO’s creative process and offered practical frameworks for building innovative, people-first cultures. His writing has shaped how leaders understand and implement HCD as a team sport, not just a design function. In founding D4V (Design for Ventures), a Japan-based early-stage VC firm in partnership with IDEO, he extended this influence into entrepreneurship, supporting ventures that embed human-centered values from the start.

Bill Moggridge

Bill Moggridge was a British designer, author, and educator who played a pioneering role in shaping the field of interaction design and advancing human-centered design. He co-founded IDEO alongside David Kelley and Mike Nuttall and is credited with designing the first laptop computer, the GRiD Compass, in 1982. Moggridge's influence laid the groundwork for interaction design as a discipline and helped define what it means to integrate human-centered thinking into the digital age.

Tim Brown

As the former CEO and current Chair of IDEO, Tim Brown was instrumental in advancing and popularizing design thinking as a business strategy. Through his book Change by Design, he introduced the principles of human-centered design to a global business audience, emphasizing its role in innovation, culture-building, and systems-level impact. Under his leadership, IDEO expanded the practice of HCD into fields like education, public policy, and healthcare, showing that thoughtful, people-first design could solve complex global challenges.

Don Norman

A cognitive scientist and usability advocate, Norman popularized human-centered design with his influential book The Design of Everyday Things. His work emphasized designing for how people actually think and behave, not how we assume they do. As a fellow at IDEO, he helped integrate these principles into practice and industry.

Jane Fulton Suri

A psychologist and design researcher, Suri brought the lens of social science into industrial and interaction design. At IDEO, she pioneered empathic observation, helping designers deeply understand behavior and context. Her contributions advanced the practices of design research and prototyping that are now standard across human-centered approaches.

Key Takeaways

• Human-centered design is a creative problem-solving approach grounded in empathy, iteration, and collaboration.

• It helps reduce risk, uncover unmet needs, and design more inclusive, impactful solutions.

• It differs from (but overlaps with) design thinking as a broader mindset.

• It’s used across sectors, from healthcare and finance to education and social innovation.

• Start practicing human-centered design by listening deeply, prototyping quickly, and learning from real people.

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