Human-Centred Design Is Broken

Crap!
I know this look.

They stopped listening.

Now they are waiting for me to finish talking.

This has happened to me before. And I’ve seen it happening to other people as well.

The moment you start talking about human-centred design to non-designers you see in their eyes how their soul dies. Dies from boredom.

Design with people’s needs at the forefront.
It’s a widely accepted standard.

It’s on the landing pages of design agencies.
It’s in the curriculum of design education.
It’s in the job posts of top companies.

This has to be legit.
This has to be the right way to design products.
Right!?

Then why when it’s time for a critical decision

1) Founders will choose profit over human needs
2) Designers will gladly skip all best practices
3) And anyone else will go along with it

There is something clearly broken here. We say one thing and do another.

As humans however sophisticated we will always choose to secure resources over anything else. It’s in our nature. Look at the base of the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

As the makers we sometimes forget that we are the same flawed humans as the ones we design for. And to do a good job for them we need to take care of ourselves first.

Otherwise, we pretend that we play in God mode and sooner or later reality catches on and we realise it’s all about money after all.

So, we need a new thing.

Maybe it’s just a small step before what we usually do.
Or maybe it’s an entirely new approach altogether.

But we need some sort of practice that exposes and keeps top of mind the real constraints and incentive structure of the environment where we design for others.

So we don’t waste time with ‘best practices’ that no one really cares about and design for reality, not just the best-case scenario.

Anyone you with me?

How should we call this? ideas?
Reality-centred design?
Cynical design 😅