No. 2: Design and nostalgia
Human-Centered Design and what does it mean to be Human anyway?
Human-Centered Design Has Become Stale
Human-Centered Design (HCD) is aging like bread, in the sense that a lot of new designers and design courses ignore the depth of knowledge that already exists around interaction design. In today's tech landscape, "Human-Centered" has become a term that companies and designers use to virtue signal rather than a genuine commitment to putting people first.
As a techno-optimist, I see this disconnect as an opportunity to focus on what Human means.
John Maeda highlighted this very concern in this year's Design in Tech Report, pointing out how the industrialization of design has led to a dilution of its core principles. He argues that we need to return to a more thoughtful practice that genuinely prioritizes human needs over technological capabilities.
This evolution creates a fundamental challenge for designers. We rely on User-Centered Design processes to make informed decisions about what elements of an experience to preserve and what to transform. Without this framework, we risk creating products that miss the mark on true human needs.
Six years ago, Erika Hall wrote Conversational Design. The book is - in her words - about what makes conversation among humans work and how to keep those principles in mind when designing any interactive system, even an organization.
In the years since, we've witnessed a troubling trend. As UX has become increasingly popular, the foundational process that exists to build successful technology products - User-Centered Design (UCD) - is often bypassed. This happens either due to knowledge gaps among practitioners or pressure from stakeholders prioritizing speed over understanding.
Designers rely on this process of User Centered Design to understand the whole user experience, otherwise known as UX. As of 2024, most people are familiar with UX, but few understand it.
Many organizations do not want to waste time on process and as a result, UX these days is rarely a User-Centered Design practice.
This evolution creates a fundamental challenge for designers. We rely on User-Centered Design processes to make informed decisions about what elements of an experience to preserve and what to transform. Without this framework, we risk creating products that miss the mark on true human needs.
What is in our control, though, is to practice and advocate for true Human-Centered Design as much as possible. Interestingly, this advocacy is emerging alongside another trend that hints at our collective relationship with technology.
Nostalgia
If we remember our past with nostalgia, it means that at one point we lived something we now miss. In design, we're currently seeing a retro lo-fi tech aesthetic that is at the core of many new product launches, creative campaigns and even fashion.
This isn't merely aesthetic preference—it reflects a deeper yearning. We want to feel and remember a time when we were in control of tech, rather than the other way around.
1999
My high school friend Jason, came over to my house once to work on a project, but there was something very important he wanted to show me first. We went into the guest room where my family kept our Macintosh computer, connected to the internet, opened Napster (a free 90s version of Spotify) - he played Disco Devil, the remix of Chase the Devil - and proceeded to open Netscape (a 90s browser).
In the address bar Jason typed google dot com.
In 1999, we all had cell phones (Nokias), email addresses (Hotmail) and used computers quite frequently to do homework and chat (Messenger), yet Google was weird, not just in name, we were suddenly exposed to everything. The digital world was expanding rapidly, yet still felt within our grasp.
25 Years Later …
Fast forward to today. At this year's 2024 Figma Config, a tech conference for people who build products, Jessica Hische, a lettering artist, was invited to walk us through her process of slow and considered craftsmanship.
This isn't coincidental. Not only is the playfulness of the 80s and 90s back, anything that signals a human touch is being elevated and effectively used to nurture an emotional connection with users and audiences. This renaissance of craft within digital spaces signals our collective desire to reclaim humanity in our technological experiences.
Design as Conversation
Design is currently often framed as a problem-solving process. There's a history to how design methods positioned design as a science.
User-Centered Design (UCD), the methodological foundation of what we now call Human-Centered Design, unlike most creative work, is a process that is repeatable and produces measurable results. As a UX standard, it is closer to science than art, helping us understand the problem before jumping to solutions.
A solid example of this “design as science” effect is a book titled the Interaction of Color by Josef Albers. Feel free to look him up. The main takeaway is that he’s one of the Bauhaus designers who introduced the concept of Design as a problem solving method, as a scientific model.
Design Thinking is a framework that in theory is repeatable, guarantees results and in essence promises change with low risk. Business folks love low risk solutions and as designers we have sold ourselves as problem solvers.
Relying on these models is smart because they resonate with engineers and business stakeholders, putting them at ease. We can collaborate better.
Yet as creatives, we know that Design is like a good conversation. The less scripted, the better the outcome. We know that the work of coming up with ideas, turning nebulous abstract concepts into concrete, tangible, measurable results is actually an extremely non-linear process, heavily dependent on context.
User-Centered Design, helps us with a clear process that allows us to build successful technology products by understanding the problem, doing iterative work and not rushing to a solution.
Creative Work
Designing is the act of understanding. The more we understand something, the more we can explore options and offer possibilities.
It’s quite common to realize while we are prototyping a “solution”, that we made some really bad assumptions or the problem we are trying to solve for is not the actual problem. This happens because as we work toward achieving a goal, we often realize the goal itself needs to change. That’s what Design does. Design is about change.
Design is a conversation about what to keep and what to change.
Design is not a science, but user-centered design gives us a process that helps us deliver a good user experience (UX).
Design is an act of co-creation. I cannot design a system, a service or a product without an engineer and other people impacted by my decisions.
Design, as a creative act, is subjective and each designer will bring a different perspective and a different way of figuring out what to keep and what to change.
The Future of Design
If Human-Centered Design has become more of a trendy term people can use in their bios, rather than a practice that genuinely focuses on people, what action should we take as UX practitioners?
The answer lies not in abandoning HCD principles, but in expanding them. I'm starting to look at the horizon, beyond conventional human-centered approaches, to incorporate a regenerative and inclusive perspective in my work. This means considering not just immediate user needs, but broader social and ecological impacts of our design decisions.
Why is this expansion necessary? Because our current definition of "human-centered" often narrowly focuses on individual users while ignoring collective human needs and planetary boundaries. True human-centeredness must account for sustainability, accessibility, and social responsibility.
Creatives are uniquely positioned for this responsibility because I can't think of anyone other than creative thinkers who actually care more about outcomes and less about profits. The final decision may be in the hands of business executives, but if we learn to talk business effectively, we can gain the respect of the decision makers.
The future of design includes the hard work of looking at the consequences of our designs at a larger scale.
We need to figure out what to keep from our existing practices and what needs to change to meet the complex challenges ahead.
Thank you for reading.
With love,
Eva ツ