The document critiques human-centered design (HCD) by arguing that it fails to recognize its own paradoxes, feigns political neutrality, and views empathy as a substitute for real ethics. The author maintains that HCD within a capitalist system is fundamentally unsustainable. Empathy alone does not lead to good design outcomes and is regulated by capitalism. True design must consider broader ecological concerns rather than just solving problems or meeting market needs. Centering the human ignores the complex interdependence of all systems.
2. Design Facilitator
Strategist and Researcher
Design Critic
Author
Based in NYC
Research Interests: HCD, sustainability,
design philosophy, co-operative and
participatory design, design ethics and the
politics of design
Thomas Wendt
Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
3. HCD fails to recognize its own paradoxes
HCD feigns political neutrality
Empathy is faux ethics
HCD within capitalism is fundamentally
unsustainable
Premises
Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
In a way, this talk used HCD as a platform to talk about sustainability.
I maintain an ambivalent relationship to this topic, as I make part of my living by teaching HCD. But I think we need to think more critically about the
things we do everyday.
More of a critique of centricity; HCD is just a convenient target.
4. “Practicing criticism
is a matter of
making facile
gestures difficult.”
Michel Foucault
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwi4-LGJ7e7OAhVJ1R4KHcOVDPAQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fredaccion.lamula.pe
%2F2016%2F05%2F04%2Fcinco-peliculas-para-acercarnos-al-pensamiento-de-michel-foucault%2Fmanuelangeloprado%2F&bvm=bv.
131669213,d.dmo&psig=AFQjCNE3qL9R4PaBFzANOa50w_DK0aGHgw&ust=1472842773590572
So the point of this talk is not to dismiss HCD but rather to call its flaws into question while still remaining open to accept its benefits.
5. “One of the (many) ways this
culture is killing the planet is
through a lack of
imagination.”
Derrick Jensen
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwjvp7G78-7OAhWBJh4KHYZODYIQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.coach.me
%2Fderrick-jensen-interview%2F&bvm=bv.131669213,d.dmo&psig=AFQjCNETAFmz2oEOEYwMpWT_FKROYozIIQ&ust=1472844476561644
Call to action for designers.
Radically reimagine systems of power and ways of being
6. HCD fails to
recognize its own
paradoxes
Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
7. Abductive reasoning
Studies of the artificial
Wicked problems
Complexity
Collaborative design
Origins of HCD
Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
Movement away from the original interest in complexity among the early design theorists
Giancarlo de Carlo. “Architecture is too important to be left to architects
8. But somehow we dumbed it
down to…
Problem + HCD = Solution
Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
Our scientific rationalism creeps in and we start looking at HCD as a means of pure problem solving.
Russell Ackoff on solving, resolving, dissolving, and absolving.
9. One cannot propose a solution without
understanding a problem
AND
One cannot understand a problem without
proposing solutions
Problem-Solution Paradox
Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
10. Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwjjqLuY2sTSAhVFZCYKHXleApcQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fextreme.stanford.edu
%2Fprojects%2Fembrace&bvm=bv.148747831,d.amc&psig=AFQjCNFNEI5U0aVRu2BApUC3w6-AP8X3sw&ust=1488986779187933
Low cost incubator = lower infant mortality
Hospital in Nepal with empty incubators because babies are born at home
Embrace costs 1% of a hospital incubator and can be used anywhere.
Great product, but it only begins to uncover the real structural issues of the problem space. Why is health care lacking in these regions? Why is getting to a
hospital so difficult? Why are local healers not already dealing with this?
11. “Nearly all of our present
ecological problems
originate in deep-seated
social problems.””
Murray Bookchin
Social ecology. (ecology as the interaction between environmental elements)
HCD tends to see design problems as things needing fixing, rather than complex and systemic issues.
Mention Kees Dorst’s Frame Innovation model
12. Innovation is what makes humans
special
AND
Innovation is not inherently good
Innovation Paradox
Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
Bookchin on how humans can innovate rather than simply adapt
13. “The chief premise common to both
technology and science is the notion that there
are no desirable limits to the increase of
knowledge, of material goods, of
environmental control; that quantitative
productivity is an end in itself, and that every
means should be used to further expansion.”
Lewis Mumford
Hyper-rationalism leads to uncritical acceptance of innovation.
Mumford: classic techno-pessimist concerned with power structures in technical systems
19. Market needs
≠
Human needs
Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
The biggest HCD paradox of all.
These are usually not compatible and are often at odds.
25. "One thing I know about my
fellow New Yorkers, they like
things that are completely free
of charge.”
Mayor Bill De Blasio
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwjx77vS7O7OAhVJlR4KHUqoAxoQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki
%2FBill_de_Blasio&bvm=bv.131669213,d.dmo&psig=AFQjCNG5zE1H909KO14tQTY7MP4UVK_apA&ust=1472842656619228
Irony is that they’re not free at all.
Costing us a sense of dwelling. I’m scared by this neoliberal acceptance of invasive advertising.
27. Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
Human
Centricity forecloses on everything outside the center
Human becomes sovereign in a system of which we are only a small part.
Another paradox: J Paul Neely’s conclusion that design systems have no boundaries
36. “Empathy is a flow, it is current-and wave-
based—it is analogue. The subject cannot
make a conscious decision for whom they
empathise with or where and when empathy
becomes involved. Nonetheless, capitalism
seeks to digitise empathy; it seeks to
segment empathy into on and off, zeros and
ones, so that empathy, or a form of empathy,
can be utilised.”
Tristam Adams
Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
Empathy becomes another force for capitalism to regulate.
Similar in design: empathy has become a function of ethics and productivity.
Designers are taught to empathize, but how are we expected to turn it on and off?
37. Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwiMyLLX4abSAhXkxYMKHX0tCT0QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com
%2Fairbnb-takes-down-san-francisco-ads-2015-10&psig=AFQjCNEaKxB6q_eYBNBs1d_LmhEu371raw&ust=1487957923000165
Empathy is great for the individual but can be devastating for ecologies, especially when it leads to further privatization of common resources.
41. Humans or Consumers?
Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
Who does HCD address? Humans or Consumers?
42. Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwjniZykyqrOAhUNySYKHULVBokQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftechcrunch.com
%2F2016%2F06%2F28%2Famazon-expands-its-dash-button-program-to-50-more-brands-says-orders-taking-place-twice-a-minute%2F&bvm=bv.128617741,bs.
1,d.eWE&psig=AFQjCNHk53IK-_iuoOOZQ_6CIJrJffKjkw&ust=1470496941706454
This is what we end up with from companies we tend to associate with HCD. Things designed under the auspices of “human”needs”
These types of “modern conveniences” do not serve real needs; they instead serve to ensnare consumers in patterns of “convenient consumption.”
43. We are so alienated from our food sources in modern industrial capitalism that we rely on packaged garbage to feed us. So we might cook up some Kraft
Mac and Cheese for dinner.
44. The combination of sodium, carbohydrates, and artificial everything makes us dehydrated, so we turn to Gatorade to quench our thirst.
45. All this sweetened, artificial food packed with preservatives upsets our digestive systems, so we always need an abundance of Cottonelle toilet paper.
46. We use Clorox wipes to clean the kitchen, because anything less than clinical sterilization is unacceptable.
47. And since the wipes are conveniently disposable, we throw them away in a Glad trash bag to be shipped off to the landfill.
48. We put on some Loreal Youth Code after dinner to ward off any signs of natural aging.
49. Now it’s time to tend to the children, feeding them their own form of packaged garbage in the form of Gerber baby food.
50. And changing their Huggies diaper
And throwing the old one out in the Glad bag (it always ends in trash)
52. “The origin and refractoriness of
unsustainability can be attributed to many
causes, but two stand out as critical: the
Cartesian, scientific mindset of modern
cultures and the hegemony of technological
and technocratic solutions to all individual
and collective problems.”
John Ehrenfeld
Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
Unsustainability lasts because of centricity: both of scientific hegemony and technocratic power.
Capitalism created both of these effects.
54. Ecology
=
study of the home, dwelling
Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
Home is different than house; it includes physical, social, and ethical dimensions of dwelling.
Capitalist HCD at scale is not equipped to deal with ecological concerns. It tends to treat the “home” as a source of material to convert into capital.
55. Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwjniZykyqrOAhUNySYKHULVBokQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftechcrunch.com
%2F2016%2F06%2F28%2Famazon-expands-its-dash-button-program-to-50-more-brands-says-orders-taking-place-twice-a-minute%2F&bvm=bv.128617741,bs.
1,d.eWE&psig=AFQjCNHk53IK-_iuoOOZQ_6CIJrJffKjkw&ust=1470496941706454
This is not a home-like landscape
56. Rethink human needs through
the lens of radical,
prefigurative politics
Thomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt
Stories of quitting jobs if you’re doing more harm than good.
Being good enough as a designer to effect change in restrictive systems.
Get radical (focus on root causes)
Prefigurative politics
Practice solidarity and mutual aid
57. What Things Do: Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design - Peter Paul Verbeek
The Psychopath Factory: How Capitalism Organizes Empathy - Tristam Adams
Endgame - Derrick Jensen
The Myth of Human Supremacy - Derrick Jensen
Toward an Ecological Society - Murray Bookchin
Remaking Society - Murray Bookchin
Change the World Without Taking Power - John Holloway
Direct Action: An Ethnography - David Graeber
Tools for Conviviality - Ivan Illich
Design for the Real World - Victor Papanek
Further Reading
58. Read about my next
book:
bit.ly/persistentfools
Thanks!