What does it mean to be Person Centered?

“We envision a world where all people have positive control over the lives they have chosen for themselves.” -The Learning Community, 2022

Software has a come a long way in just my lifetime. I was born right before the rise of the internet, and have been on this wild technology ride my entire life. I have seen the web explode, the birth of mobile apps, and now the dawning of the metaverse. While keenly excited, and relatively naive — I see this as an opportunity for humanity to evolve. Enriching the lives of not some, not many, but ALL human kind.

Now, I know that seems cheesy, very Lennon… but in this case I may be uniquely qualified to give such an opinion. Before making the leap into software development I was a special education teacher and advocate for people with intellectual disabilities. I have always seen parallels from my previous life experience, in software design. Whether it be accessibility or developing user personas.

Being Person Centered in our design and implementation practices may seem redundant. Yet, I haven’t seen actual practices brought into the ideation or planning process. As we push forward into a new digital landscape, I think we need to put more effort and thought into how those spaces will support everyone. Can we make them not just open - but accessible, and accommodating, so all can be included?

The quote above is from The Learning Community’s website, and I led with this on purpose. I want to help create and interact in a Metaverse where we have positive control over our lives there, and where everyone can engage and enhance their life. To be Person Centered in our software design we need to root our foundations in helping people achieve what they want; our software should show we understand what is important to them, and not just what is important for them.

How can methodologies from Social Work apply to Software Design?

“Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal” - Pablo Picasso and Steve Jobs

To me translating Social Work to Software makes perfect sense because at the end of the day we make computers serve and support people. Design Thinking already borrow’s from Psychology and Behaviorism by looking deeply into user interactions. Personas already start to go into Person Centered Practices but I think we can do more and be better about our approach.

Examples of Ideation and Planning Activities.

During ideation and planning we should really solidifying our understanding of what the user needs:

• What is important to them?
• What is important for them?
• What is important to and for the people that care about our focus user?

This requires delicate balance; ensuring that we provide important things like scalability, reliability, and performance while delivering on the quality of life requirements. This activity should allow us to ensure that the ”To/For” scales are as equal as they can be, while encapsulating what we need to deliver.

“If I had an hour to save the world, I’d spend 55 minutes defining the problem.” -Albert Einstein

Einstein’s point here is one I get caught up in, before jumping to solutions make sure you are solving the actual problem. I see it all the time; when we are gathering requirements and/or acceptance criteria we get hung up on the implementation. We lose focus on the deliverable(s), and therefore the person we are making this feature for. We need to ensure we have actually put down what we know. What we do with that knowledge is then the implementation.

The last tool I want us to start incorporating in our planning process is a tool to help us manage risk throughout the project. By thinking about what a good interaction with our product looks like and what a bad interaction with our product looks like this enables us to ideate and plan for our rewards, as well as, our risks.

Why should I apply these practices - aren’t we doing enough?

I think we have come a long way, with a long way left to go. We should really have dedicated time in our iterations to make our products more focused on the wants and needs of our users by defining who that user actually is. The impending Metaverse calls for this line of investigation and purpose. As we can literally change peoples lives for the better.

Imagine going through these exercises for a person named Bob, who has limited mobility, thus limiting real life social interactions. What is important to Bob is to have a place where he can belong, show off his personality, and be his best self. What is important for Bob is that this place is always on, he has access to the tools he needs, and supports are in place for when he needs them. The problem Bob has today is his quality of life has gone down due to rising gas prices, and limited public transportation - so his only means to interact with others his age is through online spaces.

Bob is a figment of my imagination, but I want to do right by Bob.

“If people who use services are to have positive control over their lives, if they are to have self-directed lives within their own communities, then those who are around the person — especially those who do the day-to-day work — need to have person centered thinking skills. Only a small percentage of people need to know how to write good person centered plans, but everyone involved needs to have good skills in person centered thinking…” - The Learning Community, 2022

And here is the software design version:

If people who use technology are to have positive control over their lives, if they are to have self-directed lives within their online communities, then those who build software for that person, those that do the day-to-day work need to have person centered thinking skills. Only a small percentage of people need to write good person centered software design, but everyone involved needs to have good skills in person centered thinking…

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If you are interested in learning more on Person Centered Thinking applied to Software Design, subscribe to The Singleton Observer. This will be part of a series on the topic over the next few weeks.

It has been a pleasure to open this blog with an article that has been near and dear to me for many years; I hope to explore more topics in software, both design and engineering.

👓 Stay observant my friends. 👓