Utilizing Human-Centered Design to Enhance the Customer Experience

In this article, we explore what customer experience really means and offer insights into best practices that encourage conversation and action. At Milligan Partners, we follow a holistic customer-centered process to help our customers address their most complex challenges. 

The Power of a Customer-Centered Approach
A customer-centered approach to development focuses on designing products, services, and systems around the actual needs, behaviors, and pain points of users. This methodology, rooted in Human-Centered Design (HCD), ensures that solutions are intuitive, efficient, and satisfying. By prioritizing user needs from the start, businesses can create experiences that drive customer loyalty, reduce friction, and improve operational efficiency. Additionally, an HCD-driven approach minimizes costly redesigns, streamlines decision-making, and ensures that solutions align with both user expectations and business objectives.  

Identifying Your Users and Their Needs
The first step in optimizing customer experience is understanding who your users are. This involves defining broad user categories—such as Drivers, Internal Users, and Third-Party Providers—and further segmenting them into relevant cohorts. For instance, drivers may be divided into account holders, non-account holders, and fleet managers.  

In our experience, many requests for proposals and requirements traceability matrices overlook internal or operational users, focusing primarily on external-facing groups. This oversight often leads to costly design revisions and delays due to misunderstandings and contract clarifications. A Human-Centered Design approach ensures that all user groups are considered early in the process, avoiding unnecessary obstacles later on.  

HCD in Action: Research & Discovery
Once user categories and cohorts are identified, the next step is to thoroughly understand their challenges, goals, motivations, and pain points. There are various research tools and methodologies available, including:  

• Desk Research – Reviewing existing sources like Google reviews, feedback surveys, and competitive analysis.  

• User Interviews & Focus Groups – Engaging directly with users to gather qualitative insights.  

• Observations & Field Studies – Understanding how users interact with a system in real-world conditions.  

A critical component of HCD is avoiding bias in research. By staying objective, organizations can ensure they are solving real pain points rather than reinforcing assumptions. Clear business objectives also help prioritize insights—for example, if your goal is to increase tag-based transactions from 90% to 95%, research should focus on understanding non-account holders rather than those already enrolled.  

Designing with Users in Mind  
Techniques such as Service Blueprints help map customer journeys and identify improvement opportunities. Additionally, prototyping and scenario creation allow teams to test and refine solutions before full-scale implementation. Providing many different opportunities for user feedback allows us to refine solutions during the process to ensure businesses can create seamless user interfaces, content strategies, and interaction models that align with both user needs and business goals.  

The Benefits of a Human-Centered Approach
A rigorous, HCD-driven strategy delivers measurable benefits, including:  

• Reduced Costs – Minimizing expensive redesigns by addressing needs early.  

• Fewer Change Orders – Preventing contract misunderstandings and project delays.  

• Shorter Delivery Timelines – Streamlining the development process through iterative design.  

• More Accurate Solutions – Ensuring the right problem is being addressed before jumping into solutions.  

• Higher User Adoption & Satisfaction – Delivering experiences that users find intuitive and valuable.  

Final Thoughts
By applying Human-Centered Design, organizations can drive user-centered innovation, reduce inefficiencies, and create experiences that truly resonate with customers. Conducting thorough user research before an RFP release ensures smarter spending, faster delivery, and higher solution accuracy—ultimately leading to better outcomes for all stakeholders. 

If you would like to learn more about how we employ this approach to our work, stop by our booth, #615, at the IBBTA Technical Summit in Dallas later this month. We’d love to hear from you and help raise the boats for the entire industry.