Human centered design and engineering refers to coming up with product design that suits specific users based on the person, character and behavior of the users. HCDE focuses on making technology accommodate people rather than having the people accommodate technology; it is integrating technology and engineering to make products work for the people. It is an interdisciplinary where many fields are integrated; examples of the fields are computer science, industrial engineering, information science, technology among others.
HCDE has proved to offer good results when it comes to social media platforms and phone manufacturing companies such as Google, apple, Facebook and even Lego. It has focused on the emotional relationship that exists between the product and the user to come up with applications and devices that are suitable to different categories of users thus strengthening their market. Apple has used HCDE characteristics to be able to penetrate the market and achieve remarkable success. Another example of the same is in the healthcare sector where a model of patient centered care is being adopted by hospitals. This is done in order for each patient’s treatment to be customized and suit them individually. It has led to the adoption of customer experience officers being employed. David Kelly who founded IDEO came up with the first mouse for apple as per HCDE principles; another example is the trio which offers the thumbs up and down in TiVo remote control
Currently my contribution to human design development and engineering is by first utilizing the little resources I have to study human needs and behavior and come up with basic products such as software’s that can been used by specific groups in analysis of data and also social media applications. My other contribution is the design of video games for different groups of people such as children or even middle aged people, scheduling of software is my other HCDE characteristic project where by when one turns on their computers, the program starts up and displays the tasks one is to perform on that day and also a web browser that prevents cookies from tracking the web pages a user visits.
Majoring in HCDE will enable me to be able to come up with product design that suits specific human needs and that bend towards the user. The course will also enable me to have a more deep scientific understanding of people in order to design as per the experience and therefore come up with designs that are genuinely sensitive to the needs and abilities of different people in society. The course also helps to learn about informed design where products are intentionally designed to meet specific human requirements and the designs don’t just happen by accident but are well thought of before engineering the product.
The contribution to my department is to use my knowledge in technology together with understanding of human needs and behavior to come up with great designs to be used in teaching other students and also open up the department to the world as the best place to learn HCDE. My other contribution will be to come up with teams that create more complex designs that suit many different people. The designs that will be created will be placed in the faculty physically and their working will be demonstrated physically and online making many people gets knowledge on HCDE.
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