USAID is a global leader in international development, producing thousands of knowledge products each year. Every new resource we create competes for the attention of our audiences. How can we make sure that our work catches the eyes—and interest—of our audience members? We must first empathize with the people we want to reach and understand what really matters to them.

While many of the methods presented below can be applied in various contexts, this guide was designed to be particularly relevant for USAID activity managers and implementing partners who create and disseminate knowledge products. These products include reports, case studies, issue briefs, toolkits, fact sheets, learning agendas, and more. 

The guide consists of three main parts:

• The Foundation section describes some of the challenges we face in getting the attention of our audience members, and some findings from psychology that influence those challenges.
• The Principles and Practices section introduces some ideas and approaches based on the human-centered design methodology that we can employ to better understand the people we seek to reach.
• The Annexes provide a suite of practical resources to implement those principles and practices, including checklists, boilerplate interview questions, and templates.