Siebel Center for Design with a sloped roof and stairs leading up to the entrance. The sign on the window spells out "BEGIN" in colorful letters.

My Journey Into Human-Centered Design

After joining the Siebel Center of Design as the K-12 Lead, I became an expert at HCD and design thinking. I led several projects throughout my journey and am happy to share them here.

I began to champion the methodology behind integrating the HCD taxonomy that we developed at SCD into all my work, believing that the use of empathy and iteration could help promote more creative and effective problem solving. Though our taxonomy differs from other frameworks, we believed ours helped peel away some of the abstraction and provide concrete ideas and tools for creating better outcomes.

A colorful flowchart illustrating a process with five main stages: Understand, Ideate, Implement, Synthesize, and Prototype. Each stage contains smaller steps with associated keywords, such as Explore, Reflect, Empathize, Define, Debrief, Interpret, Organize, Brainstorm, Narrow Concepts, Plan, Propose, Create, Iterate, Evaluate, Engage, Develop, Execute, and Sustain.

Lawrence, Luettamae & Shehab, Saadeddine & Tissenbau, Mike & Rui, Tingting & Hixon, Tyler. (2020). Human-Centered Design Taxonomy: Case Study Application With Novice, Multidisciplinary Designers. 10.3102/1690347.