Human-Centered Design

Human-centered design is a framework and set of methodologies that focus on deeply understanding people’s lived experiences in order to inform the development of the public services that work for everyone.

Woman with gray hair surrounded by colleagues as they review and write on sticky notes on a glass wall

From Principle to Practice

Human-centered design (HCD) focuses on learning about and deeply empathizing with people’s lived experiences, needs, and context through immersive research. This involves learning about and defining core problems, creating prototypes to test out solutions, and evaluating experiences. By continuing to test and refine product and service experiences through ongoing research and iteration, an HCD approach can help ensure that solutions are meeting people’s actual needs and fitting into their contexts.

On this page you will find information about HCD that you can bring to your organization in order to help learn about your residents’ needs and experiences seeking services while also helping to improve processes for frontline staff.

Subtopics

Explore our 7 human-centered design subtopics below.

Built Environment

1 Resource(s)

Customer Experience (CX)

27 Resource(s)

Facilitation

2 Resource(s)

Forms

9 Resource(s)

Graphic and Visual

6 Resource(s)

Service Design

35 Resource(s)

User Experience + Product (UX)

48 Resource(s)

User Research

72 Resource(s)

How to Get Started

We recommend these resources as a starting place for people-first delivery of government services.

Human-Centered Design for Public Benefits

Human-Centered Design

The Qualitative Research Practice Guide

This guide touches on everything from Code for America’s core research philosophy, to our approach to ethics and trauma-informed research, to specific research methods. It also includes plenty of practical tips on planning and executing research, as well as how to synthesize your findings into action.

  • Code for America
  • 2020

Discover All of Our Human-Centered Design Resources

Below you can see the latest items and the most popular. Click View More to see all resources and examples.