In the last few years, human centered design has been credited with creating exciting and rich products, services and experiences. But as the pace of change accelerates and we come to terms with the impact of transformational technologies like social media, virtual reality and artificial intelligence, human centered design, with its focus on the individual is no longer sufficient if we hope to create not only delightful but meaningful experiences. Here is why and how design should evolve to be humanity-centered and claim its role as new enlightenment advocate.

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September 2018
Emilia Palaveeva, F Collective
Beyond the Cult of Human
Centered Design

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About me
I work at the intersection of technology, business,
and design, to help companies identify areas
where innovation can make a difference.
• Acting as a marketing communications
director for Interaction Design Association’s
Interaction conference.
• Advisor at the UW Innovation lab.
• Former VP of marketing and business
development at design consultancy Artefact.
• Additional writings: https://medium.com/f-
collective
Emilia Palaveeva
Principal, F Collective
emilia@fcollective.co
@epalaveeva

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What is the
problem with
human-centered
design?

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“This $1,500 toaster oven
is everything that’s
wrong with Silicon Valley
design: Automated yet
distracting. Boastful yet
mediocre. Confident yet
wrong.”
FastCo Design on June
smart oven
Design is not enough for a problem not worh solving

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Human centered design
adds value, when it not
only focuses on the user,
but aims to solve a real
problem.
Meaningful wearables:
• eSight glasses
• Athena safety wearable
• Kid Power fitness
bracelet
• Apple Watch 4, EKG
Problems worth solving augment the value of design

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Even when the problem is
worth solving, if design fails
to recognize unintended
consequences, or
prioritizes the short term
needs of the individual
user rather than the
broader, longer term
impact, it can become a
synonym for disruption
gone wrong.
Beyond a problem worth solving

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When you
design for a
human unless
you think
about her
interactions
with the
world, you are
designing for
biases.
Humans are imperfect1. Humans are imperfect

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Consequences
and costs spill
before they can
be contained.
The cost of the
Arab Spring has
been calculated
to $614 billion in
lost growth to
Arab countries
according to a
UN survey.
Faster change, interconnected
world

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New technologies are
fundamentally
changing how we
interact with the world
around us. Mixed reality
and virtual reality can
treat PTSD but they can
also create
unbridgeable gaps in
our shared experiences.
New tech is upending the fundamentals3. New technologies are upending the fundamentals

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AI is helping us discover
and treat cancer better,
but does not necessarily
improve our
understanding of the
disease. It can predict
depression, but it can
also reinforce biases.
New technology is not inherently good or bad

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Human Centered Design:
Once Hot, No Longer Enough

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Humanity Centered Design:
• Addressing users’ needs
• Solving a real problem
• In the context of users’
relationships, environment,
long term well being

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Sidenote: Why design?

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• Design is the connective tissue between
complex tech capabilities to human needs
• Its recognized business impact gives
designers license to initiate a new way of
thinking
• Roots in humanistic ideals, empathy,
behavioral science, cognitive psychology
make it a good driving force for change
Why design?

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Design: Leading the New
Enlightenment

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How do we evolve
towards humanity-
centered design?

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New perspectives New focus New methodology

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New Perspectives:
Beyond the 1-1 Interaction

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Before we focus on individual interactions, we need to
look at the system as a whole, in order to understand
how parts are connected and will be impacted by
change. Speculative design is often the sandbox where
we explore these relationships between users, products
and environments.
New perspectives

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Would you kill one person to save five? The experiment
has become relevant again with the imminent advent
of self-driving cars.
FastCompany asked design companies to explore
possible solitions…
The Trolley problem: An ethical thought experiment and a design challenge

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A dashboard dial that lets
passengers decide how much they
want their car to prioritize their own
safety over that of other people.
Challenges:
• Exclusively focused on user-
product interaction and
individual benefits.
• No exploration on additional
stakeholders, broader implications
• By quickly zeroing in on a solution
paths to explore this further are
eliminated
Solution A: MAP Project Office

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A platform for citizens of a certain
area/community to vote collectively
on what kind of morality they want
their vehicles to have.
Challenges:
• No exploration on additional
stakeholders, broader
implications
• Allows for biases
• By rushing to come up with a
single interaction design solution,
may create worse problems.
Solution B: Teague

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The world in 15 years will be vastly
more connected than it is today.
Proliferation of digital devices–be
they sensors or cameras or
smartphones–provide a huge
amount of data to a giant AI system
that coordinates all the data and
reacts in such a way that no one
gets hurt.
Challenges:
• Overindexes on the system’s
thinking approach, not providing
enough detail to ground the idea
to solutions.
Solution C: Artefact

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Sidenote: What makes good
speculative design?

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• Balance of systems thinking and craft.
• Based on a framework of design/humanistic
principles.
• The concept is the means to an end.
• It highlights the danger zones as much as the
opportunity areas.

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New perspectives New focus New methodology

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New Focus:
Problems Worth Solving

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Starting late last year, we [Facebook] set out to explore how we
could make News Feed more readable, conversational, and
easier to navigate.
• How might we improve News Feed to be easier to read and
distinguish key areas of content?
• How might we make the content itself more engaging and
immersive?
• How might we make it easier to leave feedback?
“Evolving the Facebook News Feed to Serve You Better”

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The purpose of
[redesigning the Facebook news feed]
is to
[make it more immersive and engaging]
so that
[people spend more time on the platform]
so that
[Facebook can collect more data on its users and
make more advertising money.]
Source: Sheryl Cababa, Artefact

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Sidenote: How to challenge
and change the focus?

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• Beyond design thinking: critical thinking.
• Watch out for goals that are masked as
benefits: engagement, ease of use,
disruption, personalization etc.
• Stay focused on humanistic ideals principles:
• Knowledge and science
• Transparency and fairness
• Human agency and decision making
Tips to false positivity

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New perspectives New focus New methodology

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New Methodology

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The cost of open ended exploration without evaluating
consequences can be steep.
fcl

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• What if?
• At what cost?
• At whose expense?
• For how long
• ...?
New Methodology
Tarot Cards of tech by Artefact

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• Design, design thinking, development is not enough à Critical
thinking
• To augment design principles and values à Philosophy & Ethics
• To go beyond ndividual behavior impact à Behavioral
economics & cognitive psychology
• To forecast large scale impact à Political
science/sociology/Economics
• To influence stakeholders in the organization à Business
management and organizational development
• Do design for systems à Domain expertise
From pixel pushers to new enlightenment luminaries

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Are There Any Good News?

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“If you have design in the C-suite
you are more likely to be the
disruptor, not the disrupted.”
Joanna Peña-Bickley, head of design for Amazon AWS Internet of Things
The impact of design is growing: Design as a craft, a process, an organizational principle.

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“If we get a button wrong at Uber,
entire economies get disrupted. You
have to think about all these
repercussions, because little mistakes
can have incredible downstream
consequences.”
Michael Gough, VP Design, Uber
Design leaders are embracing responsibility

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Further reading

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Emilia@fcollective.co @epalaveeva
Questions?