By Erdmann Solutions…
Human-Centered Design (HCD) by Erdmann Design
Erdmann Design’s award-winning design, engineering and product development services revolve around a human centered design (HCD) approach that is particularly applicable to Life Sciences and Med Tech applications including medical devices and patient-facing healthcare delivery systems.
This is because the human centered design method focuses on the needs of end-users – both those receiving healthcare and those at the front end administering it – and works back from that desired human user experience to examine how that could shape the look, feel and design fundamentals for the product.
Human centered design innovation is one of the central pillars of the Erdmann Design Approach, combining strategic planning, experience mapping and market insights.
The human centered design approach brings tightly knit and dynamic design teams to focus on innovation and real customer needs, with particular expertise in high-risk leading edge technologies and applications in medical and pharmaceutical procedures and customer-centered design.
Human centered design principles
As a human centered design agency , the innovative Erdmann approach also relies on ‘Intelligence from within’ in developing the product, using its internal in-house experience, cross-disciplinary knowledge and contacts to bear in interrogating the applicability of the core technological innovation against identified user needs and – just as important – market realities.
Erdmann builds human based design into the project from the start, asking two fundamental questions at the start of every development process: “Will all stakeholders be offered the right solution at the end of the project?” and “Will the goal be reached with appropriate cost efficiency?”
This human centered approach contributes significant added value to clients seeking to establish process structures that can convert innovation into a deliverable and marketable service or product. Erdmann Design supports decision makers with HCD human centered design workshops, presentations and communication tools to help them make new goals achievable.
Distinctively among human centered design firms, Erdmann can bring specialist life sciences and healthcare knowledge and experience to bear in helping engineering and production-oriented companies become prepared to meet the requirements of the medical product market, with its HCD emphases on “usability engineering”, “patient experience”, and “human centered design”.
The Human centered design process
Erdmann Design’s HCD process relies on Experience Mapping as a tried and tested tool that provides an insight platform for project and risk management.
This ensures human centered design innovation and an effective design solution by bringing together human centered engineering and marketing teams to work together from the start of the process. For life sciences oriented products, these teams will take inputs from doctors, nursing staff, care attendants and patients whose actual human needs, concerns and experiences provide the decisive impetus for product design development.
The experience map links internal and business strategies with the needs and demands of the target market and also forms a human centered design and product development diary to keep the strategy of the business area aligned with the needs of the market based on real human centered design examples.
Together with the project management, all internal and external influencing factors are documented to ensure that all the relevant questions have been both asked and answered with human design thinking before committing to production.
Human centered design approach to marketing
To prepare thoroughly for market introduction, Erdmann Design supports reflection and converts insight into genuinely human centered design products that are ready for the market.
Almost alone among human centered design companies, Erdmann not only supports its clients with human centered design thinking but also with strategic and operational communications, being able to establish contacts and “sponsorships” with highly qualified groups of experts and market specialists. This simultaneously allows products and services to meet detailed regulatory requirements while also providing the necessary “push” for market entry.
Erdmann Design is involved in international product design projects and maintains contacts in China, Japan and South Korea, recognizing that markets are global and fast-changing.
Erdmann Design is active in networking and helps clients to build useful networks. It lists a wide range of cooperative knowledge-sharing partners, including a wide range of Swiss academic, life sciences, medical technology and innovation organizations as well as world-leading research centers such as Stanford University in the USA, all of which embrace human centered design thinking and HCD methodologies.
Resources
Click on Experience Mapping for Human Centered Design Thinking to download PDF.