What is Human Experience Design?
Have you ever thought what a human experience really is?
Is sex ultimate amazingness of human life? Or is it birth, sleep, eating, empathy and living a purposeful life? What is it really? What does it mean to be a human in a planet called Earth?
After working with very different companies and businesses, I’ve realised that people have distanced themselves from humanity. I’m the person adding human experiences into discussions, asking about feelings and adding human perspective into designs, concepts and experiences that are made for humans. I often end up in situations where I sort of give a permission to other people in the room to think and talk about very central human things such as emotions, feelings, motivations and empathy. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. It’s just that sometimes it’s a bit funny when people get excited of going to the human side of things - as if they were vulnerable and sensitive topics.
We’re humans, right? Shouldn’t it be the most natural thing for us to be and behave? Or did we already turn into transhumans, technology extended robot-like creatures?
Human vs. tech focus
Have you ever thought what technology really is? This one’s a bit easier than the human experience question, isn’t it?
Encyclopedia Britannica says that “technology is the application of scientific knowledge to the practical aims of human life or, as it is sometimes phrased, to the change and manipulation of the human environment“. Personally, I see technology as an integrated part of human life that’s also sometimes causing complications when not applied perfectly and designed for a specific need.
There’s one question that keeps popping on my mind day after day, month after month. And it’s the questions of whether technological development is REALLY human centered. How much can we manipulate the natural human lives, behaviour and human environment, and who benefits from it the most? Can technology serve humans and the planet? Imagine in 10 years, or 20 years. How are the technologically advanced human experiences like? Do we know how to best design technology that serves human living - without compromising the earth.
““Human Experience design will be the greatest shifts in the mindset of how design will be considered in the upcoming years” ”
The desired reality?
So, how’s your human life today? Was it impacted by something and you cannot be honest about it? I often want to dance at places but in Finnish norms it’s a bit too much? Who said it’s too much? Why am I listening to it? Why not to dance on the tram stop and sing in the tram?
Can you really say that you’re living the best human life you possibly can? Expressing yourself as you’d like to? And moreover, do you and I really know in what kind of reality we’d want to live? I’d like to raise a question here, hear me out.
Did we just slip into living life that someone else designed for us?
Specifically, designed by capitalism. Sh**. Yes, we did.
I held a future visualisation couple of weeks ago with a friend and we combined various methods from yoga, yoga nidra, creativity and painting to open up people’s channels and abilities to dream. Dreaming is totally underrated today. We know a lot of things we should do, or things we want to change in our lives but for some reason we don’t. For us humans, we need inner experiences to change things. Oftentimes, an experience can turn the knowledge into a wisdom, and make a change in behaviour. These shifts are made through micro changes in behavior. If you can see and feel yourself accomplishing something in visualisation, you’re half way there. The power of our mind is strong. The power of dreaming is strong.
Image courtesy: Fjord 2020 trend report
Life-centered and human experience design
Human Experience Design in 2019.
If we want to make our futures look brighter, we need to understand two things. Where we are and where we’re heading. To have a vision of a desired future as humans in this planet, as part of a wonderful living ecosystem. Inevitably, technology is and will be part of our future.
Fjord released its trends for 2020 and one of them is Life-centered Design. We’re slowly (but so damn surely) moving from individual centered living to a more solidarity “we“ centered. One of the biggest challenges companies face in the near future is the impact this has on business models. People are becoming more aware and conscious about the impacts their consumption has socially, environmentally and politically. Businesses need to totally change their shift from capitalist focus to a purpose focused models. Some people talk about purpose economy, some planetary economics.
Either way, the focus will be on sustaining life, empowering humanity and wellness across all living creatures. I’ve named it Human Experience Design. Life-centered is broader, I like it more as a guiding principle. In order to get to life-centered ultimatum design results, I still think humans will make the change and therefore in this blog I’m talking about Human Experience Design. People are a part of a greater ecosystem, not above it.
I did my masters thesis about service design and systems design when exploring how to develop a waste system in Zanzibar back in 2013. Without knowing, I used Human Experience Design in the process. Design has often made complex issues simple and simultaneously forgotten that the complexity in fact is important to sustain. The world hasn’t worked that way, and that’s one of the reasons we’re in trouble now, with climate change and people living their lives through fear. Design needs to focus on more broad, complex, holistic mindset that harnesses complexity and not simplifies it. This requires work and collaboration beyond industry borders. We need extremely multitalented teams to address complex issues. Fjord said it well: “designing for two sets of values — personal and collective — will be critical“ and I totally agree.
Human Experience Design will be focused on more human characteristics such as the notion of spirit and empathy.
The 7th wave is approaching
We’re currently living in the midst of the 6th industrial revolution. An era, where technological development is fast, exponential and extremely highly valued. But rest assured, the 7th wave, the era of humans is approaching! It’s a counterattack towards technological development and questions the idea of transhumanism. Some say that the 7th wave includes an idea of posthumanism in which humans are part of the nature and not above it. 7th wave will go to the roots of our existence, to the root of humanity and its much more interesting where solely technology could ever take us. It’s an understanding that we all have spirits, we’re all individuals but we yearn for deeper connection within ourselves and with other living creatures.
Designing for sustainable living
For a long time now, I’ve considered myself as an experience designer, not just a service or business designer. When designing services, experiences or new products, I’m always designing for humans. Not for robots or technology.
I’m designing for humanity, for humans - without compromising the earth.