UX Camp Spring 2024
Challenging the Concept of “Human-Centered”: It’s Time for a Rethink
Since the beginning of experience design, we have been focused on being human-centered for nearly every product, service and interface created.
What does human-centered really mean, and do we know if we achieve that as a goal when designing an experience?
At an organizational-level, practitioners must first agree on an aligned definition of “human-centered”, as it relates to the product/service/offering being put out to the world. What contributes to an experience being considered as human-centered? How close to that definition must products be for them to be considered truly “human-centered”? Without a clear and shared definition of human-centeredness, it is impossible to measure how “well” we achieve it within an organization.
Though this has long been a concept that is emphasized in theory – in practice, this moment of rethinking is imperative for multiple reasons. The design of experiences is at a tipping point. Can we afford to only be human-centered, and that too, with a poorly defined understanding of what constitutes the concept in the first place?
It is time to deconstruct what human-centered really means and consider the potential of being “human-calibrated” instead. In a world where we must be more responsible given truths about the environment and the climate, humans are only one part of the equation.
