HCD: Fad or Fab? (Human Centred Design)

I am not sure what I am seeing. (Refers to Fad or Fab? (Human Centred Design) by Lauren Kotze)

BCC or SBCC, or C4D, were all human centred. Not animal centred!  Anyone familiar with communication strategy planning knows that. You design messages for your specific audience, who are human. Hopefully messages are for their betterment.

Audience participation in designing messages or evaluating results is inbuilt in the process. Pretesting educational products is part and parcel of this process.

Seems to me its old wine in new bottles. Great if its selling.

But what on earth is this: "We should even take this further and commit to eating our own dog food:" Is this a joke or satire on the new innovation?

Obviously this line of thinking is becoming absurd.

Regards

Javed S. Ahmad

I was equally as alarmed as Javed Ahmad observed. (ED - Refers to the post Fad or Fab? Human Centred Design and the critical comment by Javed). New kids on the block not from the development sector is the impression I got from the original authors; I lost my confidence when multilaterals and a private foundation (or university depending which was being referred to) were described as “big NGOs”!

Although the principles behind HCD are mostly sound there seems to be some confusion in the terminology.

In our area of work there are new acronyms being coined at a rapid rate as well as new buzzwords. New, complicated ways of describing often common actions or processes are increasingly present.

This is commonly known as JARGON.

it is very odd that as we often work with the general population ..... people, that the way we describe our work is littered with Jargon. It, at best, helps describe a way of working, but only for our colleagues. However, it has a more profound effect on those outside our field of work.

It makes those on the outside feel excluded and separate from our group. We create an elite of "educated colleagues" This is probably the opposite of what our work hopes to do.

Does HCD mean the environment is now not at the centre of this work or culture is exiled to the margins.

HCD - Human Centred Design is making the things we design or create be at the forefront of our minds when we create them. Yet this is another separating layer of Acronym or Jargon that is paradoxically starting to do the opposite

Jargon can create a hierarchical layer of bargaining information, making good ideas into commodities. It exists in the meeting ground of the private sector the governmental sector, academe and social projects.

Let us all just try to speak plainly and help dismantle this unwanted battleground.

Bill Hamblett

Bill Hamblett's comment on the use of acronyms and jargon is very welcome. Use of ordinary language is fundamentally important in any discussion aimed at improving communication,  making it more widely accessible and useful, and broadening popular participation.

We are confronted in too many fields of business, professional, academia with what can appear as a private language blocking "non-members" not simply from contributing but often from simply taking away any benefit.

Regards, 

Miriam Lyons

I will endorse Mr Ahmad view . Human Centered Approach is not a new concept . It has been tried in different form by different agencies . Way back in 1980-90 Unicef in India helped develop  block level planning where participator approach was used to make the development planning Human Centered. The whole concept of participatory planning is human centered approach. There are several other examples.

It is good that it is now it is more being emphasized in BCC. We should encourage it and try to learn from the implementation process.

But no claim for the first time please !

ME Khan

I like members comments on HCD. I don't know why communication community keeps changing nomenclature every so often  From Health Education, to Health Promotion, to IEC, Health Communication, to Behavior Change Communication, to Social Behavior Change Communication, to C4D, and now HCD.

As far as I know these are only name changes, but objective has always been the same: changing health knowledge, attitudes and behavior. Process always include audience identification and participation.

Can anyone throw some light on these changes, why are they made? Is it institutional word play? or Donor liking and disliking, or lack of rigor in our profession.

Lastly, do we ever estimate cost differential in adopting one over the other? Or costs will always be same?

Regards.

Javed Ahmad

I wanted to step into this conversation - HCD: Fad or Fab? (Human Centred Design) - because, based on the reactions to the original post (OP), I think the main point of the original post's authors is valid and important and has gotten completely lost in this conversation. My reading of the OP was that the authors were explaining that, in their experience, there is reluctance to invest in using Human Centered Design HCD), and whether or not this is at the heart of current SBCC work in the development arena, an arena that appears new to them. They explained that their HCD process puts people at the heart of, and the center of all programming, from concept to end product/implementation.

They are asking the development world if this is how we already work, and asking the tough questions of WHO gets to decide WHAT behaviors, and WHEN, and with WHOM, and WHY?

These are all valid and critical questions that we in the development arena of SBCC/C4D should always be thinking of and dialoguing about. Instead, we seem to chase after donor dollars, allowing donors to tell us what behaviors they think should be changed, and to some extent even telling us WHERE, WHEN & HOW these behaviors should be changed. TRUTH TIME: How many of us have allowed a donor, an INGO, or a UN or bilateral agency to tell us what we're going to be doing with a program or project? Show of hands? Sadly, I doubt any of us can say we've never caved in to that. What the OP is saying/asking is, are we putting those we're supposedly working for at the center of all decision making? After working in the SBCC world for going on 31 years now, I can say honestly, no, most of the time we don't do that.

Javed Ahmad said:

"BCC or SBCC, or C4D, were all human centred. Not animal centred!  Anyone familiar with communication strategy planning knows that. You design messages for your specific audience, who are human. Hopefully messages are for their betterment.

Audience participation in designing messages or evaluating results is inbuilt in the process. Pretesting educational products is part and parcel of this process."

I think the above statement illustrates the most common mindset that I encounter no matter what region I'm working in, and yet it also illustrates everything that is broken within the SBCC/C4D development arena. Mr. Ahmad says that because BCC/SBCC/C4D is for humans, that means it is 'human centered', but that is not what 'human centered' means in HCD, nor in the way the OP describes it. In fact, what the OP is describing is what we call human rights-based approaches or HRBAs. Anyone who has worked with UN agencies and UNICEF in particular over the past 10+ years has seen documents peppered with the acronym "HRBA". Interestingly, a few years ago, UNICEF NYHQ conducted a survey that showed that the majority of respondents knew HRBAs were important and a foundational element of their programming, but had no idea how to turn the concept of HRBAs into actual action.  We focus so much on theoretical capacity building but not much for hands on, simple to use approaches that uphold the tenants we supposedly hold so dear in our mission statements, resulting more often than not in rubber-banding back to top down IEC messages and materials.

The above quote goes on to say that we design messages for audiences who are human, and hopefully for their betterment. This is one of the most common problems with BCC/SBCC/C4D globally, because we – outsiders, and by this I mean both international outsiders as well as local staff because often my local colleagues are not part of the community they serve and are thus as much outsiders as I am - make up messages and materials and throw them at our 'audiences' hoping something positive sticks with them.

We spend an inordinate amount of time and money creating more messages and materials, and relying on those to do the bulk of our social and behavior change, while we ignore the most powerful form of communication for change that costs nothing – interpersonal communication. What we should be doing is sitting in partnership with those we're supposed to be working with - notice I didn't say working for? I said working with, because the process described in the above quote illustrates the more common approach of us "SBCC/C4D experts" telling "those people out there" what they should and should not be doing. However, the process that the OP describes is not 'business as usual', rather, it describes putting those we're working with at the center of all the phases of design (in my opinion also including them in proposal design), programming, implementation, and evaluation. THAT is what ‘human centered design’ means. It has nothing to do with the fact that one is working with human beings.

The same quote goes on to say that audience 'participation' in designing messages and evaluating their impact is built into programming already, and uses pretesting IEC as an example. Again, this to me, is the current and very common 'business as usual' mindset but it is not very effective, nor is it in any way illustrative of HCD or HRBAs. Allow me to explain - and I'll use examples from my own work since I don’t work with, nor know the OP organization nor their work firsthand. For many years I and some of my colleagues have become frustrated with this practice that the most important factors in social change of any kind should rely on messages and materials, normally created in a fairly top down manner even today. The obsession I have seen with IEC for nearly 30 years now ought to be enough to show that relying mainly on messaging and materials does not create lasting change, and a large reason for that is because top down, project-driven ‘tokenistic participation’ is mistaken for rights-based ‘partnership participation’. If you want proof you only need look to the WASH sector and handwashing. The development world has been trying to improve handwashing since when? Maybe since the 1960s or 1970s? That's going on 60 years. If we can’t get it right after that amount of time and massive investment, maybe we need to look inward, ask ourselves the tough questions, and re-evaluate how we approach our work collectively in a different manner. What I see is a sector that follows the money, not reality, not inclusivity, not partnership in a rights-based context. What I see is a sector that devalues investment into processes that are truly rights-based and that can lead to long-term, generationally sustainable change, by caving into short-term 'show me the results in 12 months' donor demands.

So how do we course correct and ensure that human centered design takes root? We have to look to instilling human rights-based approaches at every opportunity and phase in our programming continuums. I’ll give a personal example. In 2014, we were frustrated with facilitating workshops on SBCC/C4D, and then having our participants end up reverting back to top down IEC messages and materials. So we took a hard look at how we were conducting workshops and we reverse-engineered our approach to teaching others about SBCC/C4D. We decided to focus on an experiential learning format where participants experienced behavioral and social norms changes in real time during a learning event. In addition, we got rid of nearly all our mind-numbing power points, and we used powerful and emotional video discussion starters, stories, photos and games to help country level implementers and planners to experience change in real time, in a guided, safe and supportive environment.

Our goal was to help people understand how to use HRBAs to engage communities, but first they had to get in touch with and develop their own inner change maker, and only then they could then help others to develop their inner change makers. We call our approach Change Makers Experiential Learning Labs, and it’s all about getting away from IEC and business as usual, and getting back to basic human centered communication via each person’s inner Change Maker. When I started reading about Human Centered Design, I thought to myself, "Hmmm, this sounds like human rights-based approaches to me."  What I recognized in the OP was that HCD is another way to approach social change, but it has to include HRBAs in order to bring to fruition, the human centered design ethos - which is that the people for whom the program/project is for must be active and equal partners and at the table for all aspects of programming. Rights holders are not there to be used to field test messages created in the comfort of our air conditioned offices. Rights holders should be working together with us to develop those messages – if messages are needed at all, and we should be sitting with them where they live, not in our offices. Every aspect of HRBAs dictates that we don’t just consult an audience or beneficiary because that is a disempowering process that holds back, holds down, and thwarts the basic human rights of an individual to participate in his or her own personal development and that of the societal structures they live in.  So no, BCC/SBCC/C4D is not inherently 'human centered' simply because it involves tokensitic consultation with other humans, it must include HRBAs in order to be human centered.

Now let's take that comment from the OP about eating one's own dogfood...An unfortunate choice of words that was likely meant to be funny, but was taken literally by some. What I believe the authors meant was that it’s high time we stopped just 'talking the talk' about real human centered design and HRBAs, and started 'walking the walk'. And if one is going to 'walk the walk' and practice what they preach (which means that the rules are for both rights holders and duty bearers), then that means that they have to follow the mantra we share at the start of every Change Makers Experiential Learning Lab: change begins with me - as an individual, and change begins with us - as a collective of people who commit to working with HRBAs. And in order to activate the "us" part, one's office/project team must be willing to change how they do business and create a rights-based community of practice at every level and within every aspect of their work processes.

Business as usual - where experts take money from donors who often tell them what they want done, sit in their nice offices designing messages and materials that are then maybe pre-tested with those who should have been partners at the table all along, but are now reduced to superficial beneficiaries, is another mindset and way of working that reduces people taking passive hand-outs (and often not what they wanted), not hand ups, and is anti to HRBAs and HCD. We also don’t refer to people as audiences or beneficiaries anymore because we see now how disempowering and anti-HRBAs that is. We always help others learn about the rights holder/duty bearer dynamic and once you understand which side you stand on in any given situation, you know whether or not you're using HRBAs, and thus activating HCD.

I could go on and on about this but if you’ve managed to get through this entire missive, I will both thank you for reading it, and leave you with this: In my opinion, what was described in the initial quote I mentioned, encapsulates the common business as usual mentality that holds back SBCC/C4D. We need to stop relying on top down, expert-driven IEC – be it traditional media or new media or IT gadgetry (those things are fine as support materials but not as a stand alone main course) – and get back to basics. People talking to people, that’s the main course. Ask yourself this question: What is the biggest life decision you’ve made to date? Did you make that decision by looking at a brochure or a TV advert or some slick TV series, or did you talk with people you value and look up to, to work through that decision making process? Interpersonal communication is the most powerful social change tool we have. It costs nothing to use once we know how to use it by activating our internal Change Maker skills. And to do that, you need to understand how to use human rights-based approaches for human-centered design.  And you need to fully commit to the process, because the process is what will bring lasting, long-term generational change, so that we can finally move on from handwashing to something more pressing.

Respectfully,

Shari Cohen

Change Makers Experiential Learning Labs

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I pick up on some of the words of Anne McArthur; about the private sector engaging in public health and keeping the language plain. I’m not a health sector or development communication specialist, I’m an education sector and human rights activist (just to be clear about my starting point). But what is plain and simple in this conversation thread to me, is a correlation between one of the (many and multi faceted) concerns of the health and education sectors; public health, public education; are each and both a public good. A responsibility and duty of the state for people to have equitable and inclusive access to free, quality and responsive/relevant healthcare (and education).

Anne also touches on marketing; and I agree; we must remain acutely and critically cognizant of the very distant agendas between marketing and development communication. While one can help and learn from the other when carefully constructed from conception through to end gains (a rare win win in my experience); I think we need to be very careful that the lines do not become blurred (which is when I think also the language particularly becomes blurred ). HCD is a form of “experiential marketing” (more buzz words that I hear and read coming out of Europe) from what I can ascertain; participatory development communication is (often) about human rights, which, by definition places humans at its centre as other commentators in this discussion thread have already observed - and their human right to quality health care /education etc.

In marketing, money talks. In development communication, transformative impact on the lives of people (especially people living in conditions of poverty and marginalization) talks. Like Anne says; “deck”, “node”... all alienating and dehumanizing language (and often emanating from Washington DC when one traces the source of many of these politically and ideologically weighted linguistic strategies) ... the plain facts in my humble opinion are that people have a right to equally access quality and inclusive public goods that the state as duty bearer must be (shamed if necessary) into providing.

The health, education, environmental etc lives of people living in conditions of poverty matter, marginalized peoples lives matter, human rights matter.  And it is those very same people that must be placed at the centre of health , education etc need and demand. Their voices matter and their language, culture, realities matter. I’m looking forward to the day when I see the High level, global policy debate “nodes” “decked” with human beings affected most by those same policies speaking a language they understand (and the rest of us have to (un)learn, relearn and reorientate around).

Thank you Shari Cohen for a very detailed missive - Participatory' and 'Rights-Based - Difference - I am impressed by your conviction in HCD and HRBAs. I wish you had given some example of HRBAs in communication so that I could relate to it, but I am at a loss. In my understanding, human rights approach would be to use communication tools in a way that human rights are not violated. Example is when family planning agents push men and women to accept sterilization /vasectomy without making sure that they fully understand/comprehend what is involved in the procedure. When communicators don’t use language of the audience (oops..people, may be) they violate human right to information that affects their lives. Why hand washing campaigns fail… have you considered poorly designed and implemented communication campaigns, availability or access to water, soap? I was in Eriteria conducting a workshop where I learnt that all the soap was imported and hence expensive. I proposed to the UNICEF to explore possibilities of village women producing their own soap, starting a cottage industry?  I don’t know what is the connection with HRBA? Please enlighten me.

I will not hasten to blame donors for some of our mistakes. Understandably donors want to see results because they are responsible to their governments who in turn are responsible to their legislators for the use of funds. Donors are given funds to provide goods and services in poor or developing countries to fight hunger, disease, illiteracy and poverty, among others. Some donors are better than others in achieving their goals. This explains top down messaging. I need not dwell on the merits and demerits of change agents. You are still a change agent whether you use HCD or HRBAs. If your effort is not meant to bring change what it is for? Obviously handwashing is still not as successful as family planning has been. Now contraception is practiced by more couples than 30 years ago, and communication had a role in that success.

Any communication professional who prepares messages and materials without basic research, including FGDs, is not doing justice to his/her profession. Preparing messages and materials is a serious business.

I do question your statement that “ ... while we ignore the most powerful form of communication for change that costs nothing – interpersonal communication.” I believe the cheapest channel of communication is electronic media and most expensive is interpersonal communication. And also there is no channel of communication which is free, unless you are talking about gossip and rumors. By the way if you don’t like to refer to people as audiences or beneficiaries, what do you call them? Just people? I fail to understand how calling a group of people as audience will violate human rights? Which right? Please educate me.

I understand that through Change Makers Experiential Learning Labs you can start  discussion but how many lab sessions, how much time and at what cost will you be able to bring what change in a population of million people? In other words if your lab can be upscaled, will it be still at no cost?

Regards

Javed Ahmad