In this talk I discuss some of my concerns with human centred design, how HCD can be seen as: 1. subordinate to business 2. centred on some 3. anthropocentric – and why that is problematic. The talk is based on my essay with the same title: https://www.jussipasanen.com/human-centred-design-considered-harmful/ This talk was originally presented at Prototypes and Popcorn in Melbourne, Australia on 7 May 2019.

1. HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN
CONSIDERED HARMFUL
Jussi Pasanen Photo: Javier Canada
May 2019
Designer

2. ‘In less than 50 years, we've seen an
overall decline of 60% in population
sizes of vertebrate species.’
Living Planet report 2018
412CO2 parts per million (ppm)
average in March 2019
Mauna Loa Observatory,
Hawaii, US
NOAA ESRL, co2.earth
-60%
WWF

3. AUSTRALIA LEADS
AFP, Robert Rohde

4. HCD
De-Tomi Adriano

5. A CRISIS OF FAITH

6. 1. HUMAN CENTRED
DESIGN AND BUSINESS

7. THE THREE LENSES OF HUMAN
CENTRED DESIGN
IDEO

8. WHAT COMPANIES CARE ABOUT

9. CAPITALISM

10. A HISTORY OF THE WORLD
IN SEVEN CHEAP THINGS
Jason W. Moore and Raj Patel (2018) 🎥 📘

11. Raj Patel (2018)
CAPITALISM NEVER PAYS ITS BILLS
▶ youtu.be/x7YEgA2f8ok

12. HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN
IS SUBORDINATE TO
BUSINESS

13. 2. HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN
CENTRED ON WHOM?

14. TECHLASH
Image adapted from Future Behind

15. THE SHARE-WASHING OF
LATE STAGE CAPITALISM
Mexie (2018) 🎥

16. Mexie (2018): The Share-Washing of Late Stage Capitalism
▶ youtu.be/EwModqyLzQE

17. TECHLASH AND DESIGN
Sadly, much of [what lead to techlash]
is done with the willing participation
of designers; designers who were just
applying – and often expanding on –
the ‘best practices‘ of our field.
The design work at these technology
firms follows a ‘human centred process’
and ‘improves the user experience’, yet
the tech industry is reeling.

18. CENTRED ON WHOM?
Human centred design has made
digital products and services
exponentially easier to use
compared to the early days of
computing. It has also made many
daily interactions so much more
seamless and convenient, especially
for wealthier people.
However, not all humans are equal
in the typical human centred design
process. The customer who pays the
bill gets a hand-crafted experience,
whilst the broader society and the
living planet are typically ignored – or
even taken advantage of.

19. HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN
CENTRED ON SOME

20. 3. HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN

21. ANTHROPOCENTRISM
“Anthropocentrism is the belief
that human beings are the most
important entity in the universe.”
Wikipedia

22. CONFRONTING
ANTHROPOCENTRISM
Eileen Crist (2014) 🎥

23. Eileen Crist (2014): Confronting Anthropocentrism
▶ youtu.be/pZkFj9uPKXo

24. THE HUMAN CENTRED WORLDVIEW
Adapted from Martusewicz (2015)
in Lupinacci & Happel-Parkins (2016)

25. DESIGN IS ANTHROPOCENTRIC
Human centred design is literally
anthropocentric design.
By focusing only on humans, we frame out
the rest of the living planet. Mountains,
rivers, oceans, rivers, wildlife and other
animals, insects, bacteria and the rest of
the bio- and geosphere become irrelevant.
If their destruction is required to
improve the human experience, so be it.
Nor does it matter if the problems we are
‘solving’ are real or manufactured.
In economist speak, all these natural
wonders that enable and sustain life, are a
mere externality. At best, they are just a
backdrop, a temporary canvas or a prop for
the perfect Instagram shot on a carefree
long-haul holiday.

26. LOOK AT THE SYSTEM

27. GROWTH = CONSUMPTION = DEPLETION
Karen Higgins (2013)
[Emissions]

28. AN UNSUSTAINABLE SYSTEM
When us designers make things more
convenient for users, products easier
to buy for customers, and customer
service more frictionless, there is
virtually always a business transaction
that takes place behind the scenes.
Something is being bought and
sold.
When something is being bought,
there is almost invariably a direct or
an indirect component of extraction,
exploitation or emissions to it. This is
unavoidable in the system of
industrial capitalism, for it is a system
that is fundamentally unsustainable.

29. MONEY IS TURNING THE NATURAL
WORLD INTO MORE MONEY
Stuart Scott (2019)

30. IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE USER?
One of my core ethical principles with regards to
user experience has been ‘doing things that are
in the best interest of the user’.
Sometimes this is easy to assess: if you are big
tobacco, a gambling organisation, a payday
lender, or another company directly exploiting
your customers, you fail this principle
automatically – no matter how ‘good’ your user
experience is.
Other times it is not as clear cut. Consider
something like Amazon Prime, a service that is
ceaselessly filling the homes of millions of
customers with stuff they don’t really need. I am
sure it is a perfectly designed service, taking out
some of the ‘pain’ of the mundane. But our
consumption culture and industrial capitalism
is fast taking us towards ecological and climate
collapse.
Once you realise this, you can ask: is Amazon
Prime, surely one of the pinnacles of human
centred design, really a service operating in the
best interest of their customers?
There is no convenience on a dead planet.

31. HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN IS
1. subordinate to business
2. centred on some
3. anthropocentric

32. WHAT IS OUR ROLE AS DESIGNERS?
By tirelessly making commerce easier, faster and more convenient,
and therefore increasing material consumption and driving growth,
what is the role of human centred design in directly and
indirectly facilitating the destruction of the living planet by
being the carbon-stained ‘velvet glove for the iron fist’ of
globalised capitalism?

33. THANK YOU
twitter.com/jopas
jussipasanen.com
Original essay: bit.ly/hcd-harmful

34. REFERENCES
1. Photo by Javier Canada
2. WWF Living Planet report 2018 ,
co2.earth
3. AFP (2019), Robert Rohde (2019)
4. Image: De-Tomi Adriano
5. -
6. -
7. Image: IDEO
8. Jared Spool , Andy Budd
9. Jussi Pasanen
10. -
11. Seven Cheap Things video: Capitalism
never pays its bills , book website and
full first chapter (PDF)
12. -
13. -
14. Image: Future Behind
15. -
16. Condensed edit of The Share-
Washing of Late Stage Capitalism
(2018) by Mexie
17. -
18. -
19. -
20.-
21. Definition on Wikipedia
22. -
23. Condensed edit of Confronting
Anthropocentrism by Eileen Crist
(2014), Department of Science,
Technology and Society, Virginia Tech
24.(Un)Learning Anthropocentrism: An
EcoJustice Framework for Teaching to
Resist Human-Supremacy in Schools
25.-
26.-
27.Diagram from Economic growth and
sustainability – are they mutually
exclusive? by Karen Higgins (2013)
28.-
29.Stuart Scott (2019)
30.-
31. -
32.-
33.-
34.-
35.-

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