Define your target audience

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Determine which group of people will use your design. By defining your clientele, your research will be more effective. Consider sociological and environmental factors. For example, a cybersecurity solution will be different for a city-based company than for a rural one. Your target audience can be defined by region, number of employees, or customer base, among other things. The more specific your audience, the easier it will be to create a solution that includes all the necessary features.

4. Do your research
Now that you’ve identified your target audience, go find them in the wild. Spend time observing and interviewing them, and considering how their cybersecurity platform works and how they interact with it. What pain points do they have with their current solution? What problems do you identify that the customer doesn’t have? You may need to go back and revisit your problems after this step. This is where the iterative process begins.

5. Analyze the data.
Look at the data you’ve collected from your research and organize your finances with mint understand what it all means. It’s important to collaborate on your analysis so that no detail is missed and everyone’s voice is heard. You can add all of their potential solutions to the larger solution. If you’re missing specific data, go back and do more research.

6. Create a prototype.
Once you have identified the features your client needs and those you think might be useful, develop a prototype of the solution. Keep in mind that the first solution is often not the best one. HCD is an art and, as such, an iterative process.

7. Check your idea and adjust it.
You will likely need to create several prototypes. Try your first option, then go back and re-evaluate what is missing or what did not work as you suspected. After evaluating, go back and create a new prototype, making the changes you identified.

8. Implement your solution.
Once a clear solution has been developed with the client's interests in mind, design the final product and have the client try it out.

Want more information about human-centered design?
Cybersecurity can benefit from this design process, as can many other areas. In fact, every company and industry can benefit from learning to break away from tradition and embrace a collaborative, innovative, iterative, and customer-focused way of doing things.

Have you or your development team tried a human-centered design process lately? How did it go? Let me know in the comments below.

If you need more information on how to effectively implement HCD, here is a list of useful websites:

Take a Human-Centered Approach to Digital Design (research available to Gartner clients only)
Field Guide to Human-Centered Design
Institute of Human Centered Design
Open Ideo Resource List
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