What Humanitarian Design Actually Means (to me)

Humanitarian design is one of those phrases that sounds impressive but actually means very little until someone explains what they really mean by it. So let me explain what I mean by it.

It starts with people

When I begin working with a new client, the first thing I want to do is get to know them. Not their business objectives. Not their KPIs. Not their target demographic data. Them — the actual human being who has built something, is trying to accomplish something, or is figuring out what they want to do next.

I want to know what they find confusing or overwhelming about their online presence. What they've tried before that didn't work, and why they think it didn't work. What they actually need, which is often slightly different from what they think they need when we first speak. This sounds simple. In my experience, it's surprisingly rare.

For a lot of my career I worked in corporate tech environments — large organisations where User Experience design was a serious discipline, taken seriously. And yet somewhere in the machinery of those organisations, the humans that UX was supposed to be centred on had a habit of disappearing.

What replaced them were numbers. Retention rates. Engagement metrics. Conversion funnels. Acquisition costs. The language of people was gradually replaced by the language of data, and the actual experience of actual users — flawed, complicated, real people with real lives — got filtered out somewhere along the way.

The corporate sheen

There's a particular kind of professional performance that large organisations seem to require — a veneer of confidence and competence that means you're expected to nod along even when you don't understand what's being said. Acronyms that nobody has heard of. Phrases that sound meaningful and say nothing. "Let's circle back." "We need to socialise this." "What's the bandwidth on your end?" The language of corporate tech is designed, whether intentionally or not, to create insiders and outsiders — people who speak the language and people who don't.

I found this exhausting. More than that, I found it counterproductive. If the goal of design is to understand people and create something that serves them, starting from a position of deliberate obscurity seems like exactly the wrong approach.

When I work directly with a client — a freelancer figuring out how to present themselves online, a small business owner who has never had a proper website, a charity trying to reach the people who need them most — I can ask every question I want. In fact, it's better if I do. There's no performance required. No pretending. No nodding along to something I haven't understood. Just people trying to figure out what the right solution looks like together. For me, that's where good design actually begins.

What humanitarian design means in practice

It means I take the time to understand not just what a client wants, but why they want it — and whether that's really what they need. Sometimes those are the same thing. Sometimes they're not, and a conversation early on saves a lot of time and disappointment later.

It means I ask questions that might feel basic but aren't — because the answers reveal things that a brief or a specification document never would. Who are your customers, really? What do they worry about when they're looking for someone like you? What would make them trust you immediately, and what would make them click away?

It means I treat the people I work with as flawed and complicated and human — because they are, and because their clients are too, and because design that doesn't account for that complexity tends to miss the point.

It means I care about more than the deliverable. A website is a means to an end. The end is a person's livelihood, their creative work, their cause, their business. That context matters to me, and it shapes every decision I make about how something looks and functions.

And it means that when I work on projects connected to causes I believe in — women's rights, women's health, organisations doing genuinely important work in the world — I bring something to that work beyond technical skill. I bring the belief that design, done with care and with humanity, can make those causes more visible, more accessible, and more impactful.

Why it matters for you

If you're a small business owner or a freelancer, you've probably experienced the opposite of this at some point. A service provider who made you feel like a transaction. A process that felt impersonal and opaque. The sense that the person you were working with was technically competent but not really listening.

It doesn't have to be that way. Working with someone who is genuinely curious about your work, who asks the questions that surface what you actually need, and who treats your business as the meaningful thing it is to you — that produces better outcomes. Better websites. Better design. Better results. That's what I'm trying to offer.

Humanitarian design, to me, is simply design that never forgets that part.

I am a freelance web and UX designer with 8 years of experience, working with small businesses, freelancers and charities from my base in Lanzarote. I am is especially passionate about supporting women in tech and projects that champion women's rights and health. Visit pollytaylor.com to find out more, or get in touch for a free 45-minute consultation.