What is Humanization?
This gives a quick like into what humanization is and why it is important.
I often get asked by clients to explain humanization. I will be talking about this topic frequently and am just going to introduce it at this point. While it is easy enough to explain, it’s quite a different thing to actually do. Let me calrify. In definition humanization means:
“to represent as human; to adapt to human nature or use”
This really sums up what it means, however, what does it actually look like? The best way that I can explain it is that the process is really taking the science of psychology, and applying it to software or business processes to make them more “user-friendly”.
The idea behind it all is that people are and always will be people. Although we are all unique in our own way, we share a commonality in instinctive and socially trained responses and curiosities in the way we interact with our environments. Cartoons have caught this since days of hand drawn mice. Don’t push the big red button….guess what happens.
Why is this important or why should any business person of software engineer bother? Simply put, the more humane your business or application is, the easier it is to use; the more efficient it will be; and the less it will cost to train or teach new users to operate or adapt. Small changes such as these on an Enterprise scale can break down into thousands of dollars a week that is saved by increasing productivity, reducing frustration and lower costs. Not bad for a non-technical science.
Hopefully I have helped clarify a little bit about what humanization is, and why it’s important.
