Who I am
Steph Stepan, aka Creative Hat, is a strategist and human-centred designer with a background in content and communication. For over 12 years she’s helped global businesses create services, products and experiences that people love and trust. She specialises in health technology, women’s health and sustainability. When she’s not helping businesses put their creative hat on, she illustrates beautiful coastal scenes filled with dogs .
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Human-centred design
Co-design
Agile project management
Inclusive design
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I use a double diamond design framework to pinpoint the root cause of an issue, identify opportunities and leverage them for growth that benefits people, business, employess and community.
DiscoverDefine
Design
Deliver
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My values are the qualities I try to bring to all my projects, regardless of deliverable or methodology.
Empathy
This tricky beast. It's the hardest to reach for when we're stressed or out of our comfort zone—and an essential ingredient of good design.Playfulness
Not just for little people. Playfulness, I find, is one of the best ways to coax ourselves and other people to try something new.Feedback
Take more than you give. Said no one, but let feedback be the exception. Regular feedback from the people you work with and create work for allows you to answer: Are we on the right track?' -
Success? In my experience it's not all that shiny (although sparkles are lovely). It's often far more quiet than that.
Some days it's enabling an ah-ha moment between two stakeholders with opposing views.
Or, it's being bold enough to pause, even briefly, when there's pressure to rush to a decision.
Most of all, it's making sure the products and services we create care deeply about the individuals and communities we make them for—as well as benefiting the business.
And the processes and operations that enable them care about the employees who keep them running.
What do you think?