Bottom-up Design Process

Often it’s too easy to think about and design things at a very abstract level, much in the same way as urban planners laying out the grid and plan for a city from above without first considering the everyday experience of people who will live there

I want to explore ways to shift from this kind of top-down design process to one that is more bottom-up and grounded in human experience. But how can I design something bottom-up? what methods and techniques might I be able to use here?