Critique of Human-Centered Design OR Decentering Design

Critique of HCD OR Decentering DesignThomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt [email protected] srsg.co

mailto:[email protected]

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

HCD fails to recognize its own paradoxes

HCD feigns political neutrality

HCD within capitalism is fundamentally unsustainable

Premises


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.

Focusing broadly on “centricity” in general. More of a critique of centricity; HCD is just a convenient target.

“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.

This is not an anti-humanist talk

HCD fails to recognize its own paradoxes


Abductive reasoning Studies of the artificial Wicked problems Complexity Participation

Origins of HCD


movement away from the original interest in complexity among the early design theorists

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwi4gM7m8e7OAhVJlR4KHf6vDdwQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Falchetron.com%2FGiancarlo-De-Carlo-767428-W&bvm=bv.131669213,d.dmo&psig=AFQjCNGN-ma0lCfhA0Cw8hU_XVdQtKoDWw&ust=1472844048049211

“Architecture is too important to be left

to architects.” Giancarlo De Carlo

Where Tim Brown got the “design version”

Anarchism, Participatory architecture for real human needs

Steelworks story. Vision for a participatory future in design.

But somehow we dumbed it down to…

Problem + HCD = Solution


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.

Problem-Solution Paradox


One cannot propose a solution without understanding a problem

AND

One cannot understand a problem without proposing solutions

Archaeology Paradox Context Field Themes

Frame Creation Model


Frame Futures Transformation Integration

Method for dealing with paradoxes.

Kees Dorst

Innovation is not inherently good


“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 https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwjQu76H-bfRAhVh3IMKHf_lDA0QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcultura.elpais.com%2Fcultura%2F2016%2F05%2F16%2Fbabelia%2F1463398051_720886.html&bvm=bv.142059868,bs.

1,d.eWE&psig=AFQjCNEpkm3ZcfJhbBiF6zsIR3QvKL4nkA&ust=1484150333852340

Hyper-rationalism leads to uncritical acceptance of innovation.

Mumford: classic techno-pessimist concerned with power structures in technical systems

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwjl37fu46bRAhVFOiYKHRMzDRYQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Frebrn.com%2Fre%2Fsuicide-nets-in-chinese-factories-that-make-various-technologica-540946%2F&bvm=bv.

142059868,d.eWE&psig=AFQjCNEVbTtmzQ93rJIOuQ0Z_xht4v6iVw&ust=1483560529919466

Innovation has a cost

Foxconn manufacturing (not just Apple but also HP, Nintendo, Sony, and others)

Even the net (as an innovaiton) ignores the real problem

Human needs

≠

Market needsThomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt

The biggest HCD paradox of all.

These are usually not compatible and are often at odds.

HCD feigns political neutrality


https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwjwkL6jjanRAhXGOSYKHRagDFwQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcyberspaceandtime.com%2FYGfwr5AL7T4.video&bvm=bv.142059868,d.eWE&psig=AFQjCNHKJOBhHAPwD3fWOPybuVoPvXiHZA&ust=1483640340689596

“Designers materialize morality.”

Peter Paul Verbeek

Wrote about this at length in Design for Dasein

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwi5kvmR7KjRAhWJbSYKHUdMD_cQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FLateStageCapitalism%2Fcomments%2F4gidxe%2Fstone_balls_to_knock_passengers_off_indonesian%2F&bvm=bv.142059868,d.eWE&psig=AFQjCNHIjTbGu46j-

RqLHzChMC_7L0h4dA&ust=1483631455078080

These types of design get a lot of attention.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwjEqsD27KjRAhUI7yYKHaqUBZwQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FLinkNYC&bvm=bv.142059868,d.eWE&psig=AFQjCNEGnqLP0hJPFX0mtSd7stqh6Uyyow&ust=1483631689849652

But these types of designs are equally political.

Free wifi = sign in to collect data, auto log in, targeted ads

Designers made a political and ethical choice about what is important in an urban landscape. Ads, not community, social ties, culture, common good

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

"One thing I know about my fellow

New Yorkers, they like things that are completely free of

charge.” Mayor Bill De Blasio

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.


Human

“People want free things”


Human

Centricity forecloses on everything outside the center

Human becomes sovereign in a system of which we are only a small part.

We don’t think about community, social ties, culture, common good, dwelling


HumanEverything Else

This is really what HCD espouses. This is a political statement, and probably not one we want to make.

HCD within capitalism is fundamentally unsustainable


Humans want/need/desire things that result in limiting their

own capacity to thrive.


Fry, defuturing

Humans or Consumers?


Who does HCD address? Humans or Consumers?


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.”

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.

The combination of sodium, carbohydrates, and artificial everything makes us dehydrated, so we turn to Gatorade to quench our thirst.

All this sweetened, artificial food packed with preservatives upsets our digestive systems, so we always need an abundance of Cottonelle toilet paper.

We use Clorox wipes to clean the kitchen, because anything less than clinical sterilization is unacceptable.

And since the wipes are conveniently disposable, we throw them away in a Glad trash bag to be shipped off to the landfill.

We put on some Loreal Youth Code after dinner to ward off any signs of natural aging.

Now it’s time to tend to the children, feeding them their own form of packaged garbage in the form of Gerber baby food.

And changing their Huggies diaper

And throwing the old one out in the Glad bag (it always ends in trash)

Humans or Consumers?


Who uses this stuff?

Is this empathy? Is it deception?

“Centricity” is anti-ecological


Ecology

=

study of the home, dwellingThomas Wendt Surrounding Signifiers @thomas_wendt

Home is different than house; it includes physical, social, and ethical dimensions of dwelling. Dash buttons do not encourage 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.


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

A landscape like this is not home

“To separate ecological problems from social

problems […] would be to grossly misconstrue the sources of the growing environmental crisis. In effect, the way human beings deal with each

other as social beings is crucial to addressing the

ecological crisis.”

Murray Bookchin https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwiLl9-b-LfRAhUH7YMKHfjSC0cQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jacobinmag.com%2F2016%2F07%2Fmurray-bookchin-ecology-kurdistan-pkk-rojava-technology-environmentalism-anarchy%2F&bvm=bv.142059868,bs.1,d.eWE&psig=AFQjCNGMm2q-

R4TKozVEBBaPZMUqTB-DCw&ust=1484150126292221

Social ecology.

HCD tends to see design problems as things needing fixing, rather than complex and systemic issues.

Rethinking Centricity


Looking beyond HCD

It’s time for HCD to get its shit together


Designers = RevolutionariesDecentering Design


“Serious ecologists must be revolutionaries.” Judi Bari

Designers = Revolutionaries Balance human uniqueness with ecology

Decentering Design


Bookchin

Designers = Revolutionaries Balance human uniqueness with ecology Determine how to bring about action

Decentering Design


Like an addict hitting rock bottomHolloway on the scream

Designers = Revolutionaries Balance human uniqueness with ecology Determine how to bring about action Resistance must create desired futures

Decentering Design


Graeber on anarchism

Read about my next book:

bit.ly/persistentfools

Thanks!