Cluster, Multi-Site, and Multi-Level Evaluation (CMME) TIG Week: Human Centered Design Approach to Data Collection for Evaluations and Research by Will Minor, Jenna Murrow, and Reagan Pearce

Date: Sunday, November 23, 2025

We are Will Minor, Jenna Murrow, and Reagan Pearce from Deloitte’s Evaluation and Research for Action Center of Excellence. Welcome to the Cluster, Multi-Site, and Multi-Level Evaluation (CMME) TIG week, where we’ll share strategies for effective evaluation across varied settings. We’ll kick off the week with a strategy to elevate participant voices in data collection—a focus in today’s landscape, where leaders rely on research to guide decisions and demonstrate impact, especially when working across sites and teams. Complex evaluations are most effective when they reflect the real experiences and needs of those they serve. One way to do that is to incorporate Human Centered Design (HCD) principles. HCD places people at the core of data collection by shaping solutions around real needs through interest-holder and community engagement to influence evaluation methodology to generate data that are relevant and impactful.

Why HCD Matters in Data Collection

Traditional data collection often values efficiency and standardization over empathy and context. This can lead to surveys and interviews that overlook participant experience and may feel confusing or intrusive. This can result in low response rates and incomplete, less meaningful data. In contrast, HCD invites interest-holders to co-create data tools, clarifying language, and surfacing cultural nuances.

Here are foundational concepts and practical applications for using HCD in data collection design and delivery:

Some Principles of Human Centered Data Collection

Empathy: Begin by understanding the needs, motivations, and constraints of those who will provide data. Use interviews, observations, and journey mapping to uncover pain points and opportunities.
Co-creation: Involve interest-holders in designing data collection tools and processes. Facilitate co-creation sessions where participants can suggest questions, refine wording, and flag potential barriers.
Iterative Prototyping: Test instruments with a small group, gather feedback, and refine accordingly. This development cycle helps create tools that are clear, relevant, and respectful.
Accessibility: Design for different abilities, languages, and contexts. Consider digital literacy, privacy concerns, and cultural sensitivities to make participation easy and comfortable.
Actionable Insights: Focus on collecting data that will directly inform decisions, improvements, or advocacy. Avoid unnecessary questions and prioritize those that offer the greatest value to interest-holders.

Hot Tips

Interest-holder Mapping: Identify all groups affected by the evaluation or research. Engage them early and often.
Listening Sessions: Conduct open-ended conversations to understand participants’ experiences with previous data collection efforts.
Co-design Workshops: Bring together interest-holders to brainstorm and prioritize data needs, question formats, and collection methods.
Pilot Testing: Run small-scale pilots to test instruments, observe participant reactions, and adjust.
Continuous Feedback: Build mechanisms for ongoing input throughout the data collection process.

For additional tips on using HCD, check out the Deloitte perspectives, Elevating the human experience in government and public services and Realizing the Promise of Human-Centered Design.

The Impact of HCD in Evaluation

HCD elevates data collection from a transactional activity to a collaborative journey, enabling organizations to achieve higher response rates, richer insights, and stronger interest-holder relationships so that evaluators and researchers can:

Solve the Right Problem: Understand the user’s challenges, behaviors, and motivations to identify unmet needs and create innovative solutions
Fully Address User Experience: Integrate ethnography, cognitive psychology, and design thinking to uncover the root causes of challenges
Connect Better with Interest-holders: Build empathy and gain interest-holder buy-in, promoting adoption of future solutions
Reduce Timeline and Risks: Accelerate delivery through ideation and iteration by gathering user feedback throughout each step of the process (research, development, refinement)

Adopting HCD principles is essential for collecting impactful data. How have you incorporated HCD in your evaluations? Share your story in the comments!

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