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HCD, UX, & CX - What Does it All Mean and How Does it Intersect with a11y?

Discover the importance of these abbreviations and how they come together to make a better digital experience for all.

5/16/2024 8:40:41 AM

Venn diagram of Customer Experience, Human centered design, and accessibility, under a GAAD logo.

Defining HCD, UX, & CX

A confluence of technology and cultural trends are driving a renewed focus on improving customer experience (CX). These trends include:

  • Increasing competition for brand loyalty.
  • New engagement tools, including AI-based interactions and virtual reality technology.
  • Higher expectations from current and potential customers.
  • Multiple spheres of customer influence, from professional “influencers” and other social media sources.

So, what is CX, and how is it different from other similar terms, including:

  • Human-Centered Design (HCD) 
  • Design Thinking
  • User Experience (UX)

And, because we’re a digital accessibility blog, what do they have to do with accessibility, or a11y?

Human-Centered Design (HCD)

HCD is a problem-solving technique or practice based on:

  • People and their context.
  • Identifying root problems.
  • Recognizing all interconnected influences.
  • Solving through small, incremental interventions.

HCD shares a lot with its cousin, user-centered design. Most view HCD as a slightly more holistic approach.

Design thinking

Like HCD, design thinking is an approach toward solving problems. Like HCD, it promotes an iterative process of prototyping and testing. Stanford University’s d.school is probably the best-known proponent of design thinking. Design thinking proponents approach problems in stages, such as:

  • Empathize: research your users' needs.
  • Define: state your users' needs and problems.
  • Ideate: challenge assumptions and create ideas.
  • Prototype: start to create solutions.
  • Test: try your solutions out.

User Experience (UX)

The Nielsen Norman Group (NNG) is widely credited with popularizing the term. They say that user experience, “encompasses all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its services, and its products.”

Usability is a subset of UX. NNG describes usability as “a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use,” based on these 5 measurables:

  • Learnability.
  • Efficiency.
  • Memorability.
  • Errors.
  • Satisfaction.

UX practitioners likely incorporate principles of HCD and/or design thinking in their work.

Customer Experience (CX)

CX is a broader, more general term than UX. While UX is based on how people use and perceive an organization’s products, CX is the overall impression customers have of the organization’s brand, based on every interaction they’ve had with the organization. 

Governor Tim Walz’s One Minnesota Plan states, “Customer experience refers to how Minnesota residents feel and what they think when they use government services.” 

Organizations that focus on CX likely incorporate HCD, design thinking, and UX in their entire organization’s culture. This would encompass everything from:

  • Deciding what they do as an organization.
  • Planning their programs and products.
  • Building and delivering their products and services.
  • Communicating about who they are and what they do.
  • Accessibility (a11y)

Accessibility (a11y)

Digital accessibility is the practice of using measurable, testable criteria to plan, design, and create digital content and technology so that it is usable by everyone, including people with disabilities. Incorporating a11y practices into your design thinking and HCD processes as well as your organization’s UX and CX missions helps avoid potential blind spots and limit variables. Organizations with a culture of a11y have greater confidence that what they do will serve the greatest number of people.

Conclusion

It’s not the buzzwords you use – it’s how you build them into your culture. A11y and other well-established practices like HCD are key tools toward building a CX culture.

 

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