Putting people first: Applying human-centered design for improved agro-climatic bulletins in Vietnam

This Info Note presents the results and insights of the application of a Human-Centered Design (HCD) approach in Vietnam to improve the 10-day Agroclimatic Bulletins (ACBs) by making them more user focused and meet the needs of both farmers and Technical Working Groups (TWGs). HCD provides a structured methodology and tools to systematically incorporate users’ feedback on their needs, behaviors, and preferences into the design of climate services. The experience of applying HCD to the ACB in Vietnam demonstrates the value of designing services with farmers rather than for them. Iterative prototyping and testing not only improved the bulletin’s development process, content and format, and but also provided further insights for incorporating user feedback. The findings revealed clear gender-based differences in how farmers perceive and use the bulletin as well as differences among men and women. These highlight the importance of tailoring communication and advisory approaches to diverse user groups and considering individual goals, needs, and motivations. While aligning weather and climate services with institutional capacities and multi-level collaboration, sustained improvement depends on keeping users at the center of the design and decision making processes, thereby ensuring their continued relevance, adoption, and impact.