Human Centered Design and UX for HCM platforms: what opportunities?

Can an interface, experience, or product be designed directly from the user’s needs, preferences, and desires?

In the HR context, Human Centered Design (HCD) seeks to answer these questions through the use of proven frameworks, such as that of Design Thinking, that start with consumer needs and help come up with ideas to quickly prototype, and facilitate the transition to the distribution and commercialization stages of the products or experiences that are the subject of the design process.

This is an approach that we as HRI have taken by working alongside a Software House in redesigning Organizational Development process management platform.

Developed and popularized by the British Design Council in 2005, the Double Diamond model has become one of the most popular and recognized in design thinking and user-centered design to represent the design and problem-solving process in a structured way.

The goal was to provide a common language to enable professionals and organizations to collaborate and address complex challenges.

This model has 4 distinct phases: these phases (see Figure 1) alternate between a divergent character (discovery, ideation) and a convergent character (definition, implementation).

All 4 phases are repeated in a cyclically until a solution is identified that satisfies all stakeholders involved in the process.

As can Figure 1 shows, the model representation consists of two diamonds side by side.

• The first diamond (Discover & Define) is devoted to understanding the problem.
• The second diamond (Develop & Deliver) focuses on solution design.

Going into more detail, the phases of the double diamond model are:

• Discovery (Discover): starting from the identified problem or challenge, a lot of information inherent to the challenge or problem is collected as objectively as possible (observations or statistical data may be used, as well as interviews)

Definition (Define): all collected data are processed by defining their priority level for the challenge or problem at hand. This step narrows the field and focuses on the “real problem to be solved.

• Ideation and Prototyping (Develop): once the problem is understood, this phase aims to identify as many possible solutions without regard to their feasibility. These solutions will be detailed and refined in order to create a prototype that is intended to give an idea of the final solution, without obviously possessing all the specifications (this is the concept of Minimum Viable Product “MVP”)
• Implementation (Deliver): Testing on the prototype made directly with the user, in order to validate the solution and also its implementation.

Human Centered Design for the evolution of HCM suites: enhancing the Employee Experience?

A concept certainly tangential to Human Centered Design is represented by the acronym UX (User Experience), which refers to the overall experience of a user during interaction with a product, service or interactive system.

Like HCD, UX provided us with an important reference framework in a recent project experience where we supported a software house in redesigning their management platform.development process 

Far from being exclusively web-related, UX has now fully entered the HR galaxy, and is an effective guide for shaping and structuring the so-called touchpoints, i.e., the different points of contact between the employee and the company itself, in the best possible way.

This role acquired by UX and Human Centered Design methodologies is particularly evident in the evolution that Human Capital Management cloud platforms are undergoing, examined in a recent in-depth study edited by Gartner (October 2024).

According to the U.S. firm, the market for cloud HCM suites is now poised for transformative change that will lead to improvements in productivity and decision-making on human capital issues.

In particular, major suite providers plan to significantly improve the user experience within platforms through substantial investments in AI and Genai technologies.

For example, Gartner assures that by 2027, employees will initiate 30 percent of all interactions under the HCM suite through natural language commands, through the constant support of an AI assistant.

To classify the extent of these improvements and evolutions, the U.S. consulting giant made a matrix divided into the 4 quadrants, within which it placed the major players in the HCM suites market, based on two dimensions:

1. Ability to Execute: considers the breadth and ease of use of HR functionality offered by the vendor, the integration between different components of the suite, and the ability to use mobile and social technologies. In addition, the dimension also considers the vendor’s ability to ensure product continuity, including support for current and future versions. Finally, sales effectiveness, ability to adapt to changes in the market, and investments in continuous product improvement are also important.
2. Completeness of Vision: This considers market understanding, marketing and sales strategy, and product vision, with focus on emerging technologies and digital transformation, but also on developing human-centered solutions within suites.

The vendor must demonstrate a clear and sustainable business model, and a targeted strategy for different market segments. It must also show UX and UI improvements, such as conversational chatbots and virtual assistants.

The intersection of the two dimensions generates the four quadrants of the matrix in Figure 2, which represent the different levels of maturity of the major HCM suite providers, based on the two dimensions we have reported: Leaders, with a strong vision and operational capability; Challengers, with a solid presence but less consistent continuity of execution; Visionaries, highly innovative but with limitations in execution; and Niche Players, focused on specific segments of the market, with more limited functionality.