In this blog post, I'll dive into how I've seen human-centered design influences each of these areas and provide practical examples of how this approach can be applied.
1. Business Strategy: A Human-Centered Approach to Growth
Traditional business strategy often relies heavily on market analysis, financial forecasts, and competitive positioning. While these are important, a human-centered approach adds a crucial layer—understanding what people truly value. This insight leads to strategic decisions that resonate more deeply with customers, stakeholders, and employees, driving sustainable growth.
An automotive retailer used rounds and rounds of human-centered research (one-on-one interviews, surveys and group workshops) to understand why some customers weren’t buying from their e-commerce site. They discovered that trust was the number one barrier. Customers wanted to see products in person before purchasing - specifically, customers wanted to inspect replacement parts for quality and precision. The retailer responded by integrating a "buy online, pick up in store" strategy, which allowed users to digitally place orders and pick them up at a local branch. The bonus customers noticed was the BOPUS model enabled the them to have the part the same hour if needed - a favorite among mechanic shops. With the speed of taking possession of products now being faster than most delivery services, we saw human-centered strategy increased conversion rates upwards to nearly 50% and customer loyalty x2.
2. Digital Transformation: Putting People at the Center of Tech Evolution
Digital transformation can be overwhelming for organizations and their employees. It's a process that can take years and bring along with it employee fatigue. The human-centered approach ensures that new digital initiatives don’t just focus on cutting-edge technology alone but also considers how people will use and benefit from them. I have seen this approach minimize resistance to change, enhance usability, and improve adoption rates.
An automotive financial services company needed to implement a new CRM system. Considering the client worked on proprietary systems that we decades old, we engaged their employees early in the design phase, to understand their workflow challenges, explore their pain points as well as the pain's points of origin while learning their preferences. By incorporating feedback loops into the system’s design, launching a prototype then a MVP, our team ensured that the tool fit naturally into existing workflows, leading to a smoother transition and higher user adoption.
Connected Channel Strategy: Creating Seamless Customer Journeys
A connected channel strategy is about ensuring that customers have a consistent and integrated experience across multiple digital touchpoints. This is mission critical for businesses that have wide generational appeal and that suffers from a dependency on monolithic systems with internal resistance to change from Leadership. Human-centered design plays a pivotal role in this by considering how people move between channels —whether it’s from a website to a mobile app, a chatbot, social media or to in-person transactions. Understanding these behaviors creates fluid transitions and cohesive journeys.
A telecommunications and media company used HCD to study how customers interacted with different support channels such as website, mobile app, and call center. Our work visualized on an end-to-end roadmap, validated by the clients' key stakeholders. My team identified for them pain points in transferring information between the channels through a current-state wireframe then we created a future-state, solution based prototype. At this point of the engagement, Leadership's resistance to system upgrades faded as it became impossible to ignore the obvious benefits. My team plotted the strategy and led the delivery of the system upgrades, making the experience more convenient and connected allowing customers to save session history across platforms. An unexpected benefit was the eased burdens that customer call and chat center agents experienced as a result.
4. Omni-Channel Strategy: Integrating Online and Offline Experiences
While a connected channel strategy focuses on digital touchpoints, an omni-channel strategy goes a step further by integrating both online and offline experiences. The goal is to create a seamless experience that adapts to where and how customers engage with a brand. HCD ensures that each touchpoint—whether it’s a brick-and-mortar store, an app, or an email—meets customers' expectations and needs.
At a high-end fashion brand, we used a human-centered approach to study how customers shopped both in-store and online. Our findings showed that many customers liked to browse online but preferred in-store purchases. This was a direct connection to the brands expensive price points. In response, we proposed the retailer adopt a "Reserve Online, Try In-Store" feature, combining the convenience of digital browsing with the tactile reassurance of in-person shopping. By adding an AR (augmented reality) to the shopping experience, customers were intrigued to 'see' the product on their person. This led to increased ROI, conversion rates and a more satisfying customer experience.
5. Employee Experience (EX): Enhancing Workplace Satisfaction
Just as we design experiences for customers, it’s equally important to consider the experiences of employees. HCD in the workplace involves creating environments, processes, and tools that empower employees to do their best work. Happy, engaged employees lead to better customer service, higher productivity, and lower turnover. After all, in some cases, Employees are the number one customer for the brand.
A healthcare provider introduced a new project management tool, only to find that employees were reluctant to use it. Using a human-centered approach, they gathered feedback and learned that the tool’s interface was overly complex. After simplifying the design while adding intuitive features based on employee needs, and after an informative launch campaign, we sawnadoption rates increase by 50%, and team productivity improved.
6. Learning Experience Design (LXD): Creating Effective Training
Incorporating HCD into learning experience design ensures that educational content is engaging, accessible, and relevant. Whether it’s training employees or educating customers, designing with the learner’s needs in mind enhances retention and application of knowledge.
A big pharma company wanted to introduce to their leaders a new organizational working model to increase team efficiency. Instead of delivering traditional training sessions, we used HCD to design interactive simulations that reflected real-world scenarios. Our support material included animated training videos with voice-overs, guided training sites with multiple choice quizes and a 1:1 sessions. Our hands-on approach was credited to improve leader confidence in using the org model and meeting their efficiency goals.
Change Management: Navigating Transformation with Empathy
Change management is often one of the most challenging aspects of business. By applying human-centered design principles, organizations can minimize resistance and maximize engagement. This means involving people early, communicating effectively, and designing transition processes that make change feel manageable and beneficial.
My last example focuses on a housing manufacturing supply company facing significant resistance during a shift to a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Instead of enforcing a top-down implementation, they used HCD to involve teams in co-creating the change process through playbooks. Employees provided feedback on pain points and participated in user testing, leading to a more refined and accepted rollout. The result was guiding the teams through 15 different departmental, interactive playbooks instead of development of new standard operating procedure manuals. Adoption rates exceeded 90%, and productivity remained steady throughout the transition.
The Connection to Usability and User Adoption
Across all these areas, the thread of usability is central. Usability isn’t just about a user-friendly interface; it's about making every aspect of an organization—tools, systems, processes—intuitive and engaging. Usability boosts user adoption, whether it’s customers using a product, employees navigating new software, or stakeholders buying into a strategic change.
When people find a system or strategy easy to understand and use, they are far more likely to embrace it, engage with it, and advocate for it. Poor usability, on the other hand, leads to frustration, disengagement, and resistance—outcomes that can derail even the most well-intentioned initiatives.
Conclusion: Building Better Organizations through Human-Centered Design
Human-centered design isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. It’s a philosophy that requires research and a deep understanding of the people you serve as well as a commitment to meeting their needs. By extending this approach beyond traditional UX to include strategy, digital transformation, connected and omni-channel strategies, customer and employee experiences, learning design, and change management, we help shape more resilient, adaptive, and successful organizations.
If you're seeking to apply a holistic, human-centered approach in your organization— whether you're developing a new product, navigating digital transformation, or designing an engaging customer experience—let's connect. Together, we can create solutions that truly matter, for people and businesses alike.
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