User Centered Design Full Lesson

This resource is a ready-to-use lesson designed to introduce students to the principles of user-centered thinking and design. At its core, the lesson guides students through understanding how to create solutions based on real user needs rather than assumptions. It encourages empathy, critical thinking, collaboration, and skills across subjects.

What is the lesson?
The lesson walks students through identifying a target user, exploring that user’s needs or challenges, and developing a solution tailored specifically to them. Students will engage in activities such as reading user profiles, asking purposeful questions as a group, mindmapping ideas, sketching prototypes, and reflecting on feedback. The structure promotes inquiry based learning and active participation.

What would students achieve?
By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

• Explain what it means to design with the user in mind
• Identify and analyse user needs
• Develop and justify a solution based on evidence
• Reflect on how feedback improves outcomes

What is included?

• Full powerpoint
• User profiles as resources

What else you will need:

• A3 paper to mindmap ideas
• Pencils/pens/coloured pencils
• When teaching this lesson, I chunked it and used timers for students to have X amount of time to complete their mindmap, X amount of time to complete the final task, X amount of time to present their work