Human Centred Design focusses strongly on “meaning”. HCD has thus developed proprietary ethnographic techniques for investigating meaning starting from the three core categories of function, ritual or myth.
Function
- the way something works or operates;
- the natural purpose of something or the duty of a person.
Ritual
- a series of actions or a type of behaviour which is regularly and invariably followed by someone;
- a set of fixed actions and sometimes words performed consistently and regularly, especially as part of a ceremony or collectively.
Myth
- a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon;
- an idealised, exaggerated or fictitious conception of a thing or person.
