Human-centric approaches in tech impress the importance of human beings in a process, whether it’s greater involvement in managing consumer interests or an empathetic approach to building user interfaces.
Collaborative approaches offer a better understanding of different parts of a tech process. For example, AI tools can help a back-end developer understand how a user interface encourages a sale without a need for essential knowledge of UX or UI design. There is evidence that these approaches have greater levels of economic value. Sectors that are embracing them are those at the forefront of product development and tech-based sectors.
Collaboration at the Leeds Digital Festival
The Leeds Digital Festival represents one of the fastest-growing tech regions in the country. Key sectors are collaborating to solve problems across sectors. Sector collaborations include FinTech, HealthTech, EnviroTech and even the cyber sector. Companies collaborate across sectors to tackle global issues like climate change and poverty.
For example, Tred has released one of the first debit cards to help customers offset their carbon footprint. And whilst the national cyber sector has declined by 0.6%, Leeds growth rate has been 9.9%. When it comes to government intervention, a taskforce in collaboration with The Cabinet Office is now set to boost the number of women-led growth firms, with a greater emphasis on those outside of London.
Centring on the customer with AI processes
There is a fallacy about AI reducing human effort. In fact, human contribution is necessary to understand the customers, their problems and why they may need to use a product. AI is designed to be used for repetitive tasks in product design so that their time can be spent deliberating on the emotional impact of products.
Leveraging AI in processes such as hiring means focussing on creating an effective platform. It can then address the needs of a client and a jobseeker whilst reducing the significance of monotonous tasks.
Democratising product development
The traditional silos of product development, which has meant that engineers and developers stayed within their specific disciplines, are fast changing. Designers, front-end developers and back-end developers stayed in their respective areas, which would often lead to compartmentalised or fragmented thinking and processes.
With AI, there has been great democratisation, with AI tools replacing time spent on specialist areas or repetitive coding. For front-end developers, they don’t need to ponder the implications of their changes on the user interface. They can see how their logic might impact user experience with AI.
