Humanity-Centered Design.
The practice of designing with communities, while recognising that people live within larger social, institutional and ecological systems. Building on Don Norman’s argument that design must expand its scope beyond individual users, to living systems, future generations, and long-term consequences, we apply that expanded scope to the challenges of international development.
Better solutions come from proximity. Designers need to be close to the people, systems, and ecosystems they design with: physically, culturally, relationally, and ecologically.
Physical proximity
Our designers are based in the same country or region as the communities they work with. Not parachuting in.
Cultural proximity
Our designers speak the language and understand the culture. That opens doors and sharpens the work.
Relational proximity
Our designers have existing connections in the community. Not starting from scratch.
Ecological proximity
Our designers understand the land, water and seasons that shape daily life in these places.
Humanity-Centered Design
starts with the system,
not the individual.
Where human-centred design begins with the individual user and works outward, humanity-centered design begins with the whole: communities, institutions, ecosystems, and future generations understood as one interconnected system. Not a series of concentric circles expanding from a person. A system from the start.
Human-centred design gave the development sector three things that still matter: empathy before solutions, prototyping before scaling, and the principle that communities shape their own challenges.
Don Norman developed humanity-centered design as a challenge to product designers: stop optimising for individual users while ignoring the environmental cost of what you make. His argument was planetary: circular economy, climate impact, the loss of living species. We work in a different domain. But his core challenge translates directly: design that centres the individual, while ignoring the systems, communities, and futures they live within, falls short.
Empathy first
Deep listening before solutions. Communities help define the problem, while designers work alongside them to understand the broader systems and conditions shaping the challenge.
Iterative prototyping
Make ideas tangible quickly. Test with real people. Improve before you scale.
Design with, not for
Ownership stays with the communities closest to the challenge, not with us.
Four limitations of
human-centred design alone.
The critique of HCD in international development is not new, and it does not come from one organisation. Practitioners, academics, and funders across the sector have documented where HCD, applied without adaptation, falls short.
HCD centres the person.
Development problems sit inside systems.
HCD surfaces what people need and value. But development challenges are also shaped by institutions, markets, social norms, and infrastructure gaps. A desirable solution still fails when the system around it cannot sustain it.
HCD can look participatory.
That is not the same as community-led.
HCD can reproduce the power relationships it claims to challenge. Communities are interviewed and brought into workshops, but rarely given decision-making power or ownership of what follows. Insight is extracted. Control stays with external teams.
HCD optimises for desirability.
Adoption depends on more.
A solution that people welcome in a workshop can fail in everyday life. Social norms, stigma, cost perception, trust, and institutional routines all shape whether something gets used. Desirability is necessary. It is not sufficient.
HCD is built for projects.
Development challenges are not.
Most HCD processes run in bounded cycles: research, ideation, prototyping, testing. Development challenges do not. Who owns the solution after the project? What happens when funding ends? The evidence linking HCD to long-term social impact remains thin.
Five additional disciplines.
One integrated approach.
Norman’s expanded framework points the direction: think systemically, design for the long term, work with communities. We go further, adding five disciplines specific to the challenges of international development: systems thinking, social and behaviour change science, futures methods, inclusive business modelling, and locally rooted participation. Together, they address the forces that determine whether a solution reaches communities, gets used, and outlasts the project.
Social & Behaviour Change
How groups actually adopt
HCD tells us what people need and feel. SBC tells us how they decide and why change stalls. Behavioural science helps us design for adoption, not just desirability.
Systems Thinking
The context that kills or scales
We map the institutions, power relationships, and infrastructure surrounding every challenge, revealing leverage points and dependencies that could undo an otherwise strong solution.
Futures & Foresight
Resilience beyond the project
Scenario planning tests how solutions perform across different futures: climate risk, political change, shifting funding. Strategies that are flexible, not fragile.
Inclusive Business Modelling
From adoption to sustainability
Business model thinking starts at the beginning: perceived value, willingness to pay, and the financial pathway that keeps the solution running when grant cycles end.
Innovation Management
How organisations own change
We design with organisations, not just for them, building the capacity, governance, and relationships that allow change to continue after we leave.
The Humanity-Centered Design process.
Expanded at every phase.
The iterative cycle (Discovery, Co-create, Prototype, Pilot & Measure, Adapt, Scale) is rooted in HCD. Proximity makes each phase more accurate. The five disciplines make each phase more rigorous, more inclusive, and more durable.
Discovery
Empathy interviews, field observations, and stakeholder mapping, extended with system mapping and behavioural diagnosis to surface the norms that shape behaviour.
HCDSystems ThinkingSBC
Co-create
Co-design workshops bring communities and partners together. Open innovation management ensures all six actor groups are in the room, turning workshops into genuine ownership processes.
HCDInnovation MgmtSBC
Prototype
Rapid prototypes: service journeys, field tools, communication materials. Business modelling runs in parallel so prototypes are investment-ready from the start.
HCDBusiness Modelling
Pilot & Measure
User testing tells us whether a solution works today. Foresight extends the question: will it work in three years, across political cycles, in a drier climate?
HCDFutures & ForesightSBC
Adapt
HCD iteration refines the solution. Business modelling and SBC evidence sharpen the approach. We improve across all lenses simultaneously.
HCDBusiness ModellingSBC
Scale
Scaling is not replication. Innovation management builds the governance and capacity to carry change forward. Foresight designs the pathway for multiple future scenarios.
HCDInnovation MgmtFutures & Foresight
Six roles.
Each one irreplaceable.
Moving from insight to change requires more than users and designers. Proportion Global mapped the six groups whose active involvement makes the difference between a well-intentioned pilot and a lasting solution.
To make this possible at scale, Proportion co-founded Innovators Team with GAIN and partners. The platform connects challenge hosts, innovators, researchers, and ecosystem actors across 62 countries.
Community members
Define · test · judge
Help define the problem, test ideas, and judge whether a solution feels useful, safe, and relevant. Their lived experience is the source of truth, not a dataset.
Changemakers
Energy · ownership · leadership
Social entrepreneurs, youth leaders, frontline workers, and community organisers. They carry solutions forward and build the local momentum that outlasts any project.
Ecosystem enablers
Conditions for adoption & scale
NGOs, funders, intermediaries, implementing partners, and private-sector actors who shape the conditions in which solutions succeed or fail. Coordinators and connectors at the system level.
Technology partners
Tools that fit real constraints
Translate ideas into platforms, tools, and digital services that fit real-world infrastructure and capacity. Technology that works offline, in low-resource settings, and at the last mile.
Researchers & thematic experts
Evidence · rigour · learning
Connect lived experience with data, analysis, and domain expertise. They provide the applied research that grounds design decisions in evidence, and help link what works locally to what is known globally.
Government actors
Public systems & policy
Essential when solutions depend on policy, regulation, service delivery, or institutional adoption. Without government actors in the room, citizen-centred policies stay on paper.
The infrastructure for multi-stakeholder co-innovation.
Co-founded by Proportion Global and GAIN, Innovators Team is the platform where challenge hosts, designers, researchers, and ecosystem actors connect to tackle complex challenges together, across sectors, countries, and funding cycles.
How it fits together.
Humanity-Centered Design is community-led, life-centred and systemically integrated. It recognises that human wellbeing depends on healthy social, institutional and ecological systems. The community sits at the centre. The six actor groups surround it, each accessible only through genuine proximity. An iterative cycle connects understanding to action.
Community at the centre
Humanity-centered Design: the methodology connecting community to outcomes
Inner ring: outcomes the community gains
Outer ring: actors who make it happen
Outer cycle: Learn → Co-create → Prototype → Measure → Adapt → Scale
The Innovators Team Platform makes it easier for all actor groups to find each other and collaborate across countries and funding cycles.
Ethical AI across every phase
AI is a practical support layer, not a separate module. Use it to sharpen challenge statements, prepare research questions, organise insights, generate sprint prompts, and structure innovation action plans.
Human judgement, ethics, consent, and lived experience remain central. AI supports better thinking. It does not replace listening or decision-making.
01
Discover
Ethics: Inclusion
02
Define
Ethics: Fairness
03
Ideate
Ethics: Transparency
04
Prototype
Ethics: Oversight
05
Test
Ethics: Privacy
06
Implement & Scale
Ethics: Sustainability
Want to apply Humanity-centered Design?
Book an informal call with one of our senior designers and we will listen, share honestly whether we can help, and follow up with a write-up with our thoughts if you wish.
→ No cost.→ Direct with a senior HCD lead.→ Written follow-up within 48 hours.