Human-centered design means that designs are adjusted to potential users and more largely to every stakeholder of the projects.

However, behind this notion of human-centered design, there are different models of what it means to be human in relation to the world and others. These models can be summed up by three categories:

• Action: Humans act on the world
• Passion: The world acts on humans
• Mediation: Humans think about the world

Human-centered design does not only accommodate functions (action on the world) but also emotions (how the world affects us) and interpretations (a free design space, a milieu where we explore with different materials how to create meaning).

To understand how these different « figures » of the user help design, see Chapter 3: Creative Figures of Users.