Discovery Operations Guide

HCD Discovery Operations Guide

What is the Human-Centered Design Guide Series?

Welcome to the Human-Centered Design Guide Series from the Lab at OPM! We’re excited you’re here. Before you get started, here are some details about the Guide Series. If you’ve already seen this information in our Github wiki, feel free to skip this section.

What is the HCD Guide Series?

The Guides are structured as a travel series through design. In the same way you can collect travel guides to Kyoto and Tokyo and Nagasaki instead of a single, lengthy all-Japan travel guide, our HCD Guide series provides two slim volumes for each phase of the HCD process: a Concept guide, focusing on why the phase works the way it does, and an Operations guide with checklists and frameworks to help with the how of the phase.

Audience

The audience for this Guide series are those in both formal and informal leadership positions. Any individual who has been assigned or sees the need for generative (not reductive or evaluative) projects and have some access to support from professional designers will be able to use the Series successfully.

Following in the Footsteps of Giants

We’re excited to follow in the tradition of beautiful, robust guidance from federal government agencies. It’s our dream for the Guide Series to bring design process guidance to shelves containing tomes like NASA’s 1976 Graphics Manual and the EPA’s Graphic Standards System. In the digital era, we strive to create UX experiences with the HCD Guide Series like the ones supported by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Design Manual.

Feedback or Questions

We welcome your feedback and contributions so we can continue to improve this HCD Guide Series as a whole or in part. If you have any suggestions or are interested in getting involved, please create an issue in GitHub.