WTF is HX Design?! (And why you shouldn't roll your eyes at another design acronym)
If design job openings have ever popped into your news feed, or if you’ve spent more than five minutes browsing LinkedIn among professional designer bio headlines, you’ve probably been bombarded with an experience design alphabet soup: UX, CX, XD, HXD, and HX Design.
And those are just a few. However, the growing number of these cute little letter combinations is sometimes enough to make even me want to close my laptop and go live in the woods. Because I feel like, even with all these labels, I'm still at a loss on how to accurately articulate what I (we) actually do as 'experience designers' (commonly, XD), but who specialize in real-life applications of the 'human experience' (hx), not mainly digital experiences (UX). I've still often found it difficult to articulate a quick summary of the (honestly fun, imo) labor of crafting the entirety of the human experience: the overlap of emotion, physical space, communication, behavioral needs, business objectives, service design, and art of creating human joy (memory) all overlap into a shared goal. From my experience and observation, the vast majority of "experience designers" out there work exclusively in pixel-based interactions. They don't get to solve for so much of the actual "human" experience of it all. Our true work as Human Experience Designers (HX Designers) is to craft the entirety of the human experience, and where all the beautiful mess of being a human comes together in real life, in physical space, at real moments in time. Where the reality of feelings, physical, economic, cultural, and social barriers are realized, pressure-tested, and solved for.
And now, as most of the business and tech world's resources are being funneled into AI, the true value of what human experience design entails is becoming more apparent. And in cultural response to the current lack of it, I hope and believe that a massive windfall of human care and empathy is headed our way in the world of business and corporate culture. Actual human needs and mechanisms of individual joy and satisfaction have been deprioritized for far too long.
It's time to fix that. And I think we can have fun with these process and system improvements, too.
At Kayto Group, this is what we do. We live and breathe empathy and are a bit obsessed with finding understanding and consensus. We strategize and design exactly for all the messy, beautiful, complicated nuances of flavors found in the human bouquet of the letter "H" of that design alphabet soup. But we also hate language that excludes. So, let’s strip away the jargon and buzzwords and answer the question bluntly: WTF is HX? What does human experience design actually mean?
What is "Human" Experience Design?
The term "human-centered" design has been around a while and is likely more widely understood. It means doing everything through a specific human lens that, unfortunately, for some reason, hasn't been the standard approach in business or design systems in our capitalistic society. So, to paint a picture, let’s start with a frustrating example: we’ve all embarrassingly looked like an idiot at one point in time, fighting with a door that seemed to communicate 'PUSH' when it should have communicated 'PULL.' We’ve all abandoned an online shopping cart because the checkout process required seven steps, three verification codes, and blood type confirmation.
Those aren't personal failures. Those are design failures. They happen when products, services, or processes are built on flawed assumptions, or if and when decision-makers prioritize a budget, deadline, or current policy over an observable human need for adaptation, whether the friction is caused by a physical element like a door or an emotional element like an HR policy. It's working above those common design and business siloes to solve multifaceted, multidisciplinary issues using human-centered design thinking. Failure in this wheelhouse looks like when an outcry for a needed pivot gets ignored, overlooked, or completely missed because it's stuck in a silo across the company. And the best way to see this is from the outside because you often need fresh eyes.
I believe all needs can be fulfilled: business operation needs and human emotional needs. We can all have cake. Business and human success can look like the same thing. Business and human success should look like the same thing.
The term human-centered design (HCD) is, essentially, the framing of how we design (products, services, brands, policy, wayfinding—you name it) for the very specific emotional, social, and practical needs of the humans in the IRL experience. It positions the business objective so that the end result of the work is done for the actual stakeholders first. We turn stakeholders into shareholders. But we need to shift the business comprehension of "value" in order to do it. It's a total system overhaul in the eyes of status quo business practices. And we do it by seeking authentic audience, customer, or staff feedback on the experience, even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts. By inviting the human to the business or boardroom table.
Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a creative problem-solving framework that puts real people using the brand, product, or service at the center of the creation process.
It is the discipline of building solutions with and for actual people, not just for them. Instead of starting with "What can our technology do?" or "How can we maximize our profit margins?", human-centered design thinking starts with:
Empathy Gathering: What does our audience actually need? What are their frustrations and limitations in real-world contexts? This cannot be a 'top-down' approach; it must be well-researched and bottom-up, with the largest possible audience.
Design Ideation: Brainstorming and prototyping directly with the end users, through participatory collaboration, active listening, interviews, and observations.
Iterative Execution: Continual testing, failing fast with a curiosity-driven mindset, getting feedback, and refining until it actually works.
This thinking process is never "over." It simply moves into different states of being, seeking continual upgrades to the product, system, or process, and is driven by the needs of the people within. You never stop listening.
Grounding your business, product, or service decisions in actual human behavior prevents you from building things that nobody wants or understands how to use.
That should give you the hot-take overview of what 'human-centered' design thinking is, but to learn more, keep reading.
The Experience Ecosystem: CX vs. EX
To understand the full picture in more detail, we have to look at how HCD scales across a business. Historically, companies have divided "experiences" into neat little silos:
1. Customer Experience (CX)
CX is the sum of every single interaction a customer has with your brand. It spans your marketing, the ease of your website, your physical storefront, and how helpful your support team is when things go sideways. The goal of CX is to make the customer's journey seamless, pleasant, and easy, ultimately driving loyalty and revenue.
2. Employee Experience (EX)
EX is the internal parallel to CX. It’s the tools, physical workspaces, culture, and processes your employees encounter every day.
Here is the catch: you cannot have great CX without great EX.
Imagine a five-star restaurant where the kitchen is a toxic, chaotic nightmare and the chefs are severely burnt out. No matter how beautiful the menu looks on paper, that tension will eventually ruin the meal.
The future of CX and EX silos: Introducing HX Design
The very middle of the experience design Venn Diagram is found in this space. The entire system viewpoint of design thinking: Human Experience Design (HXD), often referred to simply as HX.
If CX is skincare (fixing the outside) and EX is nutrition (fueling the inside), then HX is the overall systemic health.
HX is a holistic philosophy that stops looking at people as mere "users," "customers," or "employees" (truth be told, we've always hated those words) and starts treating them as whole human beings with their own complex needs.
HX = CX + EX + Brand Identity
Why HX is the Future of Business:
We aren’t just "users": Yale professor Edward Tufte famously noted, "There are only two industries that call their customers 'users': illegal drugs and software." HX rejects this transactional view. It is designed for a human's time, attention, cognitive load, and values.
It bridges the gap: HX explicitly recognizes that a frustrated employee will deliver a terrible customer experience. By designing an ecosystem where employees feel valued and psychologically safe, you organically elevate the customer's journey, not to mention increasing loyalty and reducing turnover.
It prioritizes well-being: True HX doesn't just ask if a system works; it asks if the system respects human boundaries, fosters genuine connection, and reduces unnecessary stress.
The Bottom Line
Whether working on a new brand identity or updating business policy — crafting the outcome to be human-first in your strategic business approach is how you deliver your brand authentically into the real world. It sets your culture, because it is your culture.
The next time someone asks you, "What the eff is human-centered or human experience design?" tell them this: It’s the simple, radical, long-overdue act of putting people first in all you do. And in today's world, that’s the ultimate competitive advantage.
— Need your business to be more human by bringing empathy and behavioral strategy, planning, and thinking to the table? Contact Kayto Group to start. We'll be expecting you.
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