Human Centered Innovation

Successful and sustainable digital innovation puts people at the center

Forschungsfeld »Mensch-Technik-Interaktion«, Kind spielt mit Roboter — © Frank - stock.adobe.com

Products and service concepts are only used to the extent that they meet the requirements and needs of users and appeal to their abilities. This applies all the more to digital products and services that are finding their way into our increasingly technologized world: No matter how great the advantages of digital solutions may seem, for example in production and logistics processes, in healthcare, retail, or the home environment, people still decide for themselves whether to accept the support and how to use it.

»Innovation and Transformation«

The Human Centered Innovation group is one of three groups in the department »Innovation and Transformation«, which methodically examines the digital and sustainable transformation of organizations from three perspectives: In addition to the human factor, the other two groups also incorporate the perspectives of »future trends« and »strategic-tactical business model and organizational development« into their analyses. Here you can find more information about the department, its groups, and core competencies:

About the Future Engineering Group

About the Business Transformation Group

To the Innovation and Transformation Department

Department vision: Core competences

People as the decisive factor

We believe that digitalization can expand and improve people's opportunities for action and their quality of life – in both their personal and professional environments. However, this vision can only be realized in a sustainable manner if technologies and (digital) solutions are developed that put people at the center; that qualify, motivate, and involve them, and take potential fears into account. The importance of attitudes, factors influencing acceptance and resistance, emotions, and many other personality and contextual factors are relevant here. It is also necessary to have an overview of the effects of organizational structure on behavior, as well as individual behavior models on management measures. All of this leads to an opportunity for sustainable change.

Take individual behavior into account

Our analyses in the field of human-technology interaction can be applied regardless of the industry, age, or function of the user being observed. This could be an employee in a logistics warehouse where a digital picking system is to be introduced, or a medical professional using a haptic-visual AI training system as a prototype.

In particular, we address the following topics:

»Digital Transformation«:

Change management related to corporate information and communication
Human-centered design of innovation ecosystems and value creation networks

»Service and product development«:

Usage context analyses/specification of usage requirements
Ideation und Prototyping (Human-Centered App-Design (ISO 9241-210))
ELSI-accompanying research (smart product-service-systems/KI)
UUX-Testing /(Effectiveness-/acceptance-)evaluations

»Artificial intelligence«:

Supporting the development and evaluation of needs-based and transparent algorithms
Support for modeling AI-driven objective, non-discriminatory, human-based decision-making processes
Analysis of the impact of new algorithms from a human perspective

»Innovation hub«:

Reassessment of the function of (vacant) (retail-)space from the user's perspective
Design of real, mobile, or stationary individual usage concepts

How we collect data to put people first

Based on social and economic science methods, we focus in particular on combining two types of data collection:

Subjective self-reporting and experiments
Passive technology-based surveillance

Behavioral data refers to all types of data collected about individual behavior. It is generated by or in response to a customer's economic decision-making behavior or interaction with technology. Customers can be consumers, companies, or individuals. By combining subjective assessments with objectively obtained information (in real time) – for example, through emotion recognition, facial expression and reaction analysis, or web activities and consumer behavior – the basis is created for identifying opportunities and challenges with digital experiences and products, as well as even more meaningful decision-making processes.

Specific domain knowledge

The group »Human Centered Innovation« applies its methods and expertise in various domains. It places particular emphasis on:

»Smart Healthcare«
»Retail«
»Vulnerable target groups«

Group Human Centered Innovation