The Course for Human-Centered Design *The smallest variation has been spaced specifically for legibitlity

A seven-week course brought to you by:

Class 1 An Introduction to Human-Centered Design Readings Mindsets Case Study Workshop Guide

Class 2

Inspiration Phase Readings Case Study Methods in Action Workshop Guide

Class 3

Ideation Phase: Synthesis Readings Case Study Methods in Action Workshop Guide

Class 4

Ideation Phase: Prototyping Readings Case Study Methods in Action Workshop Guide

Class 5

Implementation Phase Readings Case Study Methods in Action Workshop Guide

Before You Start

This Course Is For You This Course Can Help You Create Solutions for Everyday Challenges.

Businesses, social entrepreneurs, and other innovators have used human-centered design for decades to create solutions for many different types of challenges. This course will introduce to you the concepts of human-centered design to help make you a more effective, innovative problem solver. This course is designed with a group-guided learning structure, which means that you and your team of two to six people will be learning the human-centered design process together. The course is designed to be

conducted over seven weeks. However, you can do it faster or slower if a different pace is right for your team. This course is an invitation to experiment with the process of design. Let it inspire you to approach challenges differently and experience how human-centered design can add a new perspective and dimension to your work.

Effective Ways to Engage my Community

Unstuck

Solutions that Fit my Individual Challenge

What benefits will I gain from humancentered design ?

Improved Collaboration

More Creative Confidence More Fun

The Course for Human-Centered Design

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Before You Start

A Note About Language The Terminology Used to Describe Human-Centered Design Can Vary a Bit.

Indeed, not even the term “human-centered design” is universal among its practitioners. You’ll notice that in some of the required and optional readings and links for this course, human-centered design is sometimes referred to as “design thinking.” As a new learner of the process, you can think of human-centered design and design thinking as one and the same.

The Design Process In this course, the three major phases of the human-centered design process are broken down into Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation. As you begin reading some of the other materials included in this course, you’ll see that the steps in the human-centered design process have been broken down in a variety of different ways. For example, when reading the Human-Centered Design (HCD) Toolkit,

INSPIRATION

The Course for Human-Centered Design

IDEATION

you’ll notice that the three major steps of the process are labeled as: 1) Hear 2) Create 3) Deliver. If you read the Bootcamp materials from the Stanford d.school, you’ll see yet another set of terms. But don’t worry! As you start to put human-centered design to work, the steps will become clearer. Most importantly, human-centered design is a process. Think of it as a recipe for cooking your favorite meal. The names of the ingredients might differ from place to place, country to country, but the process itself — with an emphasis on getting out into your community, prototyping rapidly, and iterating until you get your ideas right — remains constant.

IMPLEMENTATION

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Before You Start

Course Logistics There are a Few Logistics Everyone on Your Team Should Know About.

Teams This course is designed as a group-guided learning experience. In order to make this stucture work, you’ll need a team of at least two (and no more than six) colleagues. A smaller size will make it easier to coordinate schedules and make decisions. And diversity is key: a team of people with different strengths and perspectives will only enhance your ability to come up with new solutions to complex challenges. We suggest making agreements before the course starts about what responsibilities people can bring to the table—who’s the scheduler, ensuring the team is on time? Who’s the enthusiast, inspiring the team with big dreams?

advantage of this opportunity to see how others are tackling similar challenges as you throughout this course. This course is designed to extend seven weeks, minimum—one class per week, with the exception of the materials for Class 2 and 4, which extend two weeks each. This pacing, however, is just a suggestion. The course can be completed in more or less time, depending on your team’s schedule.

Calender Plan out your workshop days on a calendar with your team. Can everyone commit to attend all of the sessions? If not, mark dates that members might miss and plan accordingly or reschedule. Some tasks might require more time, so review the requirements for each section and plan accordingly.

Time Commitment For each class, you’ll have one to two hours of readings to help you prepare for your workshop. Each workshop is scheduled to last two to three hours. For some of these workshops, your team will be expected to submit assignments to the NovoEd platform. Following these assignments, you will have a chance to explore and peer review the work of your fellow classmates. Take The Course for Human-Centered Design

Leadership At each class, a member of your team will serve as the “Class Leader.” The Class Leader will be responsible for thoroughly reviewing Readings and the Workshop Guide before the team meets so 5

that they can lead the workshop activities. The Class Leader will also organize your team to bring required supplies. You should coordi­ nate with your team to choose the Class Leader for Class 1 and subsequently choose a new leader for the following class at each group session.

Space

Suggested Supplies The human-centered design process is about making ideas visual, tactile, and experiential. It’s important to have supplies on hand that make it easy to work in this fashion. Each class, your design team will need the following supplies for the workshop: • Pens, pencils, markers, paper. • Post-it notes if they’re available; if not, cut scrap paper into squares and bring tape to stick these square pieces of paper on the wall. Trust us, this is important! • Other useful (but not required) supplies might include construction paper, foam core boards, scissors, and mobile phone cameras. •D  uring the second half of the course, you’ll be prototyping your designs; each team member will need to bring prototyping supplies to these workshops (more details later).

The Course for Human-Centered Design

The human-centered design process requires space for your team to work. Can you hold the workshop at someone’s house? Your school? Your office? Your church? Restaurants or coffee shops can work as spaces too, but sometimes can be too noisy or crowded to facilitate proper brainstorming and prototyping. Whatever space you decide upon, it’s best if there’s a wall where you can stick inspiring imagery or notes from your research, so that your team can be continuously be immersed in your learnings. Shared visual reminders will also help your team track progress of the project and stay focused on your challenge.

Printed Materials Each member of the team is required to print out the Workshop Guide for that class and bring it to your group session. If you’d like, you can print out the class readings, though this is not required. To save paper, we encourage you to download and read them on a computer or tablet.

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Before You Start

About Acumen Acumen is a Non-Profit Changing the Way the World Tackles Poverty by Investing in Companies, Leaders, and Ideas.

+Acumen is part of Acumen’s work in leadership. We created +Acumen to give people a meaningful way to “add Acumen” to their lives. Learn through our online courses or volunteer and network through our chapters. +Acumen aims to provide the tools and training for individuals to step up and create social change. Design Kit: The Course of Human-Centered Design is one of many courses inspired by the leadership curriculum used in Acumen’s Fellows Program. Each of our courses fits in one of three areas of Acumen’s Leadership Model.

MORAL IMAGINATION

FINANCIAL

OPERATIONAL

EXPERTISE

EXPERTISE

MORAL IMAGINATION The humility to see the world as it is and the audacity to imagine the world as it could be.

FINANCIAL EXPERTISE The ability to use capital as a tool we can control to execute on our vision sustainably.

OPERATIONAL EXPERTISE The skills essential to starting, running, and scaling your vision for the world.

Acumen believes in the importance of incorporating the principles of human-centered design when creating solutions to problems of poverty so that low-income communities are provided with choice, not just charity. IDEO.org has been our partner in delivering humancentered design training to our fellows for many years so we are excited to partner with them to make these tools available to more people around the world. More information can be found at www.plusacumen.org.

The Course for Human-Centered Design

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