At Civic, we define ourselves as a ‘for-purpose’ organisation. We invest in innovation, technologies and pilot ideas to drive forwards the delivery of disability services and improve the outcomes for the more than 4 million Australians living with disability. To ensure we deliver services, experiences and solutions that are truly reflective of the needs of our clients, we adopt a Human Centred Design approach.

But what exactly is Human Centred Design, and why is it relevant to the way we design our services?

Human Centred Design starts with the people we’re designing a product, service or solution for and includes three stages: inspiration, ideation and implementation

• Inspiration: ‘Go Wide’ and ‘Go Deep’, meeting with, workshopping and learning from the people we’re designing a solution for
• Ideation: ‘Go Real’ to make sense of that understanding and come up with new design opportunities and solutions
• Implementation: ‘Go Live’ and bring the solution to life

Following this approach allows us to consider human perspective throughout the design and decision making process. By adopting human centred design, we set out with an open mind set. We believe even the biggest issues are solvable. Importantly, human centred design also asks us to believe that the people who face these problems every day – those living with disability, for example, hold the key to the answer.

At Civic, we are using human centred design to create services, experiences and social enterprises that are being embraced by our clients, because we’ve kept those clients lives, beliefs and needs at the heart of the process. By following the Human Centred Design approach, we are almost guaranteed a solution that is adopted and sustainable.