Humancentered

Humancentered is a term used in design and research to describe approaches that place human needs, abilities, and values at the center of the development process. It is closely related to human-centered design, human-centered thinking, and human-centric design, and is used across sectors such as software, consumer products, healthcare, and public services.

The core idea is that products and systems should be usable, accessible, safe, and meaningful to people. Practitioners conduct user research to understand tasks, contexts, and constraints; they create personas and user journeys; they involve stakeholders in co-creation; and they apply iterative prototyping and usability testing to refine solutions.

Historically, human-centered approaches emerged from ergonomics and cognitive science and were popularized by design thinking movements and standards bodies. ISO 9241-210 provides guidance on human-centered design for interactive systems. Benefits include higher adoption, fewer errors, and better alignment with real needs; potential challenges include resource intensity and the risk of focusing too narrowly on current users at the expense of broader systemic or ethical considerations. The concept continues to influence fields from software UX to service design and policy development.