Skip to content

Meet the team: User-Centred Design at Hitachi Solutions

User-centred design (UCD) is all about making sure that the solutions we create—whether it’s a website, app, or service—puts the user’s needs front and centre. It’s designing with empathy, ensuring that whatever we’re developing is intuitive, accessible, and ultimately satisfying for both our users and clients. So, who’s behind all this? Let’s introduce the team: 

Content Designers: Clear Communication 

Content designers are the wordsmiths and content gurus of the UCD world. They don’t just play with words—they handle all types of content, making sure everything from text to images is clear, concise, and useful. Picture this: you visit a website and instantly find what you’re looking for, all written in a way that makes perfect sense. That’s the magic of a content designer in action. 

Special Skills: 

  • UX writing: Breaking down complex information so it’s easy to digest and tailored for your audience. 
  • SEO expertise: Making sure content is easy to find on search engines. 
  • Information architecture: Organising content so users can effortlessly find what they need. 

User Researchers: The Voice of the People 

User researchers are like the detectives of the design world. They dig deep to get to the bottom of what users need, how they behave, and what frustrates them, while balancing wider business contexts and desired outcomes. Through interviews, surveys, and usability tests, they gather insights that help the rest of the team develop their product in the right way. 

Special Skills: 

  • Research methodology: Using different research methods, including usability testing, to uncover valuable insights, and understanding what users need, not just want. 
  • Data analysis: Interpreting findings to help teams make informed decisions. 
  • Empathy: Truly understanding and championing the user’s perspective. 

Service Designers: The Big Picture Thinkers 

Service designers are the ones who look at the entire service experience, making sure that every touchpoint someone has with a service is smooth and effective. They map out the user journey from start to finish and spot ways to improve these interactions, whether online or offline, ensuring they deliver the expected value to the business. 

Special Skills: 

  • Journey mapping: Visualising the user’s experience from beginning to end across all touchpoints, through both happy and unhappy paths. 
  • Systems thinking: Understanding how all parts of a service, including the people who interact with it, connect and work together to deliver strategic value, while still meeting user needs. 
  • Forming and testing service concepts: Co-creating service concepts with multidisciplinary teams, stakeholders, and users, and forming experiments to test and iterate. 

User Experience (UX) Designers: Crafting the Experience 

UX designers are the architects of the digital world. They ideate and plan the layout, structure, and flow of digital products to ensure they’re user-friendly. Their focus is on how the product feels and how easily users can achieve their goals.

Special Skills: 

  • Storyboards and wireframing: Visually designing the outline of how a user interacts with the product or service, before getting into the real detail. 
  • Prototyping: Creating different versions of a product to test ideas, see what works, and make tweaks before building the final product. 
  • Interaction design: Designing how users engage with a service, ensuring intuitive and efficient interaction through flows and pages. 

Why User-Centred Design Matters 

Our UCD team has been part of some incredible projects and client successes here at Hitachi Solutions, including: 

  • Defra – Waste Tracking Service 
  • Environment Agency – EMP (Environmental Monitoring Programme) , Plan for Water and the Regulatory Services Programme (RSP) 
  • HMRC 
  • Homes England 
  • Rolls Royce 
  • Office for Students (OfS) 
  • Nuclear Restoration Service (NRS) 
  • British Heart Foundation 
  • Forestry and Land Scotland 
  • SafetyKleen 
  • Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) 
  • Sakata

UCD at Hitachi Solutions

At Hitachi Solutions, our User-Centred Design (UCD) team is all about creating ethical, sustainable, and innovative solutions that make a real difference for businesses and their users. We’re big on growth—both personal and professional—and we love working together to bring out the best in each other. By weaving UCD principles into every project, we aim to elevate Hitachi Solution’s offerings, improve decision-making, and deliver top-notch solutions that truly meet user needs. This ensures that we help businesses achieve their desired outcomes in a de-risked way by serving their users properly.

 

Our goal is for our future clients to know exactly what UCD is and deliver user experiences that drive business growth. We aim to show the value of user centred design by demonstrating its impact on user satisfaction and business outcomes. By consistently delivering high-quality, accessible, and inclusive designs, we’re here to help businesses thrive in the digital age. interested in working with our talented UCD, get in touch today.