Changing perspective: Are cultural organisations already human-centred?
The second article in our series looks at the change in thinking needed to move from organisation-centred to human-centred design in cultural organisations. By Isabel Froes, Lindsey Green and Alyson Webb.
It may be that you would like to be take a more human-centred approach too, but come across internal arguments or assumptions about what it takes to deliver human-centred museums. We hope this will help you to have those discussions.
In the previous article, Merete questioned the degree to which human-centred design (HCD) can help cultural organisations and whether it inevitably brings uncomfortable compromises:
- Does an human-centred approach potentially limit what museums can offer? Or can it helps us find new ways to tackle difficult content?
- How might smaller cultural organisations put the approach in to practice?
- Is there a role for friction and discomfort in an human-centred experience?
Despite there being a lot of chat at the moment is about HCD these are common questions. They are questions about the reality of the practice — the moment where the rubber meets the road, as it were.
In our practice, we embrace a human-centred approach — in other words our process starts with the needs and motivations of the people we are designing for — following the well-established discipline of human-centred design. This is a conscious choice. However, throughout our experience — working on over 150 digital cultural heritage projects across the EU and US — we have seen cultural organisations have different, but distinct focus for design (or making choices. These focus are normally dependent on their history and mission — this might be object-centred, science-centred, history-centred. All of these have different focus have value and they have helped cultural organisations define their ‘personalities’. Moving away from what is fundamentally an “organisation-centred” to a “human-centred” process can feel difficult and unnecessary particularly as all of these organisations care, often very deeply, for their audiences. With this long history, and the potential for hard choices it’s good to test if this different approach adds value rather than just shifting value.
So before we go any further, it’s probably worth looking at where HCD came from, why it might hold value for the cultural sector and how it differs from what most organisations are doing at the moment.
Where does HCD come from?
HCD has its roots in an older concept — participatory design. Participatory design originated in Scandinavia in the late 60s as a way of ensuring that products appealed to and met the needs of all the associated stakeholders — employees, customers, citizens. It recognised that products and services needed to work for both producers and consumers and that both parties had valuable knowledge, insights and requirements that could inform solutions. While the concept clearly had a strong social and political drive behind it, it has since been recognised as commercially valuable as well.
Aren’t we already human-centred?
One possible explanation for HCD not having been fully embraced in our sector, is that it may be seen as something they already do — caring and catering to their audiences — just using different processes. Its true that the audiences are often considered at the beginning of a process but from an organisation-centred perspective. For example, what do we want to tell them? How do we want them to use this product? What do we think would be useful for them? This is normally formed in a cultural organisation vacuum, often looking to peers for good ideas that can be adapted for the organisation’s needs. And then there’s the question of employees and other producers — to what extent do we consult with and draw upon their knowledge and ensure solutions are effective for them? How broad is any consultation?
This organisation-centred approach can often lead to ‘good’ but not ‘wow’ solutions. The solutions undoubtedly deliver some value, but as many of these decisions are taken with only a very limited visitors’ voice in the process, the results are often experiences that are designed by cultural practitioners for cultural practitioners. Many of our clients are surprised to find out just how little audiences understand about the organisation or a specific topic. How few of them have skills to gain meaning from a particular experience, installation or performance and how alienating this can feel to a new visitor. And all too often we see projects where, for example, the operational or front of house teams simply haven’t been considered and projects consequently struggle.
The HCD approach puts the audiences and the employees at the start of the process and uses their voice throughout to guide choices. It doesn’t ask them to be designers but to act as expert witnesses, communicating their needs and motivations. Only a handful of cultural organisations include speaking to their intended audience in the commissioning and development process to inform them about what problems need solving, what questions need answering.
Cultural organisations are more likely to find out audience perspectives during and after a project through “testing” or an evaluation. However, this approach isn’t a blank canvas for input, as the organisation approaches the questioning through the premise of an existing product, service or experience and therefore the questions are based on the project’s goals and expectations for example “were they able to use it?” “did they learn about x?”. Even though most organisations are including their audience in this process, in reality the audience might be only be able to validate or adjust earlier choices made by the organisation rather than expressing what really matters to them. Employed involved in operating or promoting the products and services may not be consulted til close to launch.
Employees Are Humans Too
A key aspect of human-centred design is recognising the skills, knowledge and needs of the people within the organisation. Buy-in from the people who can make a difference means listening to the internal team and other stakeholders to make sure any important requirements are acknowledged and included.
Many cultural organisations are complex ecosystems of roles and responsibilities. Different departments within an organisation have different focus — public facing staff can be very focussed on the operational requirements (how to make things run safely and smoothly) whereas staff working behind the scenes can be more object-centred (how do we tell them the things we want them to know) and managers are trying to achieve the overall mission and objectives. For us, this is exactly why HCD has a particular value and resonance in this context of the cultural sector — where audience needs and motivations need to be balanced with the organisational mission and requirements. The process allows us to bring together these many and varied needs and motivations in the service of audience and mission.
From it’s roots in participatory design to it’s current incarnation the focus of HCD is on making things work for people. Few will consider that a bad thing however, the reality of this approach in the context of cultural organisations and their role as complex, creative, sometimes provocative and often resource poor organisations means that there is a nuance to the practice and approach.
Let us know what you think. Do you think it’s possible for cultural organisations to move from being organisation-centred to human-centred? Do you think the value is worth making the change? If so, what will it take to make the shift?
In the following articles in the series we’ll be looking at Merete’s individual questions and provide some real-life examples of HCD in action.
The previous articles in the series is available — How can human-centred design work in cultural organisations?
If you’ve enjoyed this article follow the Frankly, Green + Webb publication for the next article in the series.
