Human Centered Design Concepts

Explanation

Man with his needs and abilities is the beginning and the focus of the MasterFocus Human Centered Design Concepts. In the different phases of problem solving processes, the perspectives of users are actively involved and solutions are evaluated together with users. Through empathic and experimental approaches to design, perspectives of users are included as essential aspects of the design process. In addition, users are actively involved in the design process through participation, in order to achieve higher user satisfaction and authentic problem solving. Participatory design can analyze needs of target groups in a particularly efficient way and make visible the “blind” spots of design approaches.

Courses

Human Centered Design Concepts deals with diverse aspects of life. In addition to classical product design themes and future scenarios, sexuality, birth, learning, work, nutrition, health, disease, disability, age, grief and death are recorded in their problems and conceptual and participatory approaches are developed. For example, taboo topics provide the opportunity for learning and experiencing the value of openness, the placing of prejudices and the courage to engage in new – sometimes initially unpleasant – issues.

  • Usage Scenarios
  • Social Design
  • Universal Design
  • User Experience
  • User Centered Design
  • Participatory design processes
  • Co-Creation
  • Empathic and experimental approaches to design

Study objective

The increasing complexity of the world changes the understanding of design. Design as a process means that designers have to take on new roles – as moderator, curator, collector, researcher and designer. In the Masterfocus Human Centered Design Concepts, the students encounter the different requirements of these new roles through practice-oriented or visionary topics – largely in cooperation with companies.
New technologies and networks emancipate designers from the traditional dependency on technical innovation and economic interests and at the same time give them more responsibility for the effects of their actions. The students learn to analyze problem situations in social contexts, to initiate the solution processes and to moderate them in the interdisciplinary framework. In doing so, they are always dealing intensively with content-related questions that explain the problem-solving process and often lead to solutions that are socially sustainable and go far beyond the physical product.