Courtesy of Crossett Library Bennington College
The architectural practice has always been rooted in what people now call “human-centered design”. The term, coined by Irish engineer Mike Cooley in his 1987 publication “Human-Centred Systems” describes a design approach around identifying people’s needs and solving the right problem with simple interventions. Architecture balances between being aesthetic art and practical design. With multiple collaborators and goals for the project, the needs of the end-user often get compromised in the design process. To help architects better design for people, new methodologies may be inspired by human-centered design techniques developed by user experience (UX) designers.