Human-Centered Design: Designing for People, Not Just Clicks
I spend a lot of time thinking about what makes a website “good.” Is it easy to use? Does it look good? Does it load quickly? Can people find what they’re looking for? Does it convert?
Obviously, all of those things matter. But I think there’s another question we should probably be asking more often: Is this actually good for the person using it? That’s a big part of what human-centered design means to me.
So, what is human-centered design?
Human-centered design is basically what it sounds like: designing around actual humans. More formally, it’s an approach to design that starts with understanding the people who will use something, what they’re trying to accomplish, the context they’re using it in, and what might get in their way.
That sounds incredibly obvious. But it’s also surprisingly easy to forget.
When you’re close to a project, you already know how everything works. You know what the terminology means. You know where the important information is. You know which button you’re supposed to click. The person visiting the website for the first time might now.
Human-centered design tries to close that gap by starting with the person instead of jumping straight into the solution.
We are not our users
This is probably one of the most important things I’ve learned working in web design. Just because something makes sense to me doesn’t mean it’s intuitive.
People have different levels of technical confidence. They use different devices. They have different abilities, expectations, goals, distractions and reasons for showing up in the first place.
That’s why research matters. Depending on the project, that might mean:
- User interviews
- Analytics
- Surveys
- Usability testing
- Accessibility testing
- Paying attention to the questions people keep asking
The goal isn’t necessarily to ask people what we should design. It’s to understand the problem well enough that we’re not designing a solution based entirely on our own assumptions.
Good design involves being wrong sometimes
Human-centered design is also iterative. You research, build something and test it (and repeat). You might realize at least one thing you thought was incredibly obvious is actually not obvious at all.
Usability testing isn’t supposed to prove that you designed everything correctly the first time. It’s supposed to show you where the experience doesn’t match the way people actually think or behave.
I think this is one of the things I like most about the process: Good design isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about being willing to pay attention when the answer isn’t what you expected.
Accessibility is human-centered design
There isn’t one default type of person using the internet.
Someone might be navigating your website with a keyboard instead of a mouse. Someone might have low vision. Someone might struggle with small text or low contrast. Someone might be trying to read your website outside on their phone. Someone might have a slow connection. Someone might be distracted, stressed, tired, or just really not interested in figuring out your clever navigation system.
Designing for humans means acknowledging all of that. Accessibility standards are an important starting point, but I don’t think accessibility should be treated as a checklist we run through at the end of a project.
Accessibility, usability and inclusion are all part of the same bigger question:
Can the people we’re designing this for actually use it?
But there’s another side to “good UX”
This is where human-centered design gets especially interesting to me.
Because an interface can be extremely easy to use and still not be particularly good for the person using it.
For example, think about infinite scroll. Or the popup asking you to subscribe to an email list before you’ve had enough time to read the first sentence. Or the giant STAY SUBSCRIBED button next to a tiny grey unsubscribe link. Or fake countdown timers, constant notifications and deliberately confusing privacy settings.
None of these things necessarily happen because someone forgot about user experience. Often, they’ve been very carefully designed. The question is what they were designed to accomplish.
There’s an important difference between: Can someone easily use this? and Does using this actually serve them?
And I think that’s a distinction we need to talk about more.
Not everything needs to fight for our attention
Websites obviously have business goals. They need to generate leads, sell products, book appointments, grow mailing lists and help organizations make money. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with that. Good design can make it easier for someone to take an action they already want to take. A clear call to action is useful. A simple checkout process is useful. Making an appointment easy to book is useful.
The problem starts when we’re no longer removing friction and instead using what we know about human behaviour to push people toward something they might not otherwise choose. At some point, optimizing everything for engagement, clicks and conversions stops feeling particularly human-centered.
Just because we can make something harder to put down doesn’t necessarily mean we should.
Human-centered doesn’t automatically mean ethical
There’s also an uncomfortable limitation to human-centered design itself. We can do user research. We can learn what people want, what frustrates them and what gets their attention. And then we can use everything we learned to build something incredibly addictive. Technically, we understood the user. That doesn’t mean we served them.
So I think human-centered design also needs to include questions like:
- Who is actually benefiting from this?
- Who might be excluded?
- Are people able to make an informed choice?
- Are we respecting their time and attention?
- What behaviour are we encouraging?
And maybe most importantly: Would I still consider this good design if I were the person on the other side of it?
Designing a more human internet
I love technology. I make websites for a living. I’m definitely not interested in arguing that technology itself is the problem. But I also don’t think every digital experience needs to demand as much of our attention as it possibly can. Sometimes good design does the opposite. It helps someone find what they need, understand their options, make a decision and get on with their day. It doesn’t need to turn every interaction into another opportunity for engagement.
To me, that’s where human-centered design becomes more than a UX methodology. It’s a reminder that behind every screen, session, conversion and analytics report is an actual person. And maybe the goal shouldn’t always be getting more from their attention. Maybe good design can respect it too.
References
International Organization for Standardization. (2019). Ergonomics of human-system interaction—Part 210: Human-centred design for interactive systems (ISO Standard No. 9241-210:2019). https://www.iso.org/standard/77520.html
World Wide Web Consortium. (2016, May 6). Accessibility, usability, and inclusion. Web Accessibility Initiative. https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-usability-inclusion/
World Wide Web Consortium. (2025, February 17). Accessibility: It’s about people. Web Accessibility Initiative. https://www.w3.org/WAI/people/
World Wide Web Consortium. (n.d.). Involving users in web projects for better, easier accessibility. Web Accessibility Initiative. https://www.w3.org/WAI/planning/involving-users/