Part 1: From Human-Centric Design to Human-First Design in the Metaverse
Authors: Matthew Price, PhD & Anna Schilling, MS
In Brief:
· Human-centered design must shift to a human-first design; to enable the shift from single-focused decision-making to holistic decision-making.
· A human-first design combines responsible innovation design choices with considerations across the holistic technology spectrum to better respect the individual
· The need for human-first technology design results from shifting societal expectations, economic advantage, and compliance; first movers to adopt responsible innovation practices will capitalize on increased consumer trust, operational advantages, and proactive compliance.
· As our digital and real-life worlds blend ever closer together, society must consider which expectations, regulations, and ethical standards will be critical to building our physical-digital (phygital) realities.
Moving from Human-Centric to Human-First Design
Human-centric design practices have long been a keystone of collaborative development used to produce products, services, system designs, and frameworks. Traditionally, human-centric development focused on understanding the human perspective and emotions so that outputs better catered to human expectations. For example, by talking to a software customer about their perspective and habits, a designer can determine the best spot to place a new button. However, with the transformation of our digital world from flat 2D text and images on a screen to a more immersive 3D social simulation in the metaverse— it becomes clear that traditional human-centric design needs to evolve into human-first design.
What does human-first mean?
Human first goes a step beyond human-centric design. While human-centric design tends to focus on the human perspective and emotions regarding a specific and limited user experience (UX) or user interface (UI), human-first design seeks to incorporate those perspectives and emotions into the holistic technology approach across the end-to-end technology value chain. This philosophy expands beyond a design focus at the top of the tech stack and into a “real world” approach.
For example, beyond UX/UI, human-first design asks stakeholders to consider the following:
· the data supply chain — that is, the data that is collected, leveraged, traded, and/or sold to create, build, engage, and interact with digital spaces and for digital experiences.
· the environment that individuals access and engage in and the subsequent interactions and sentiments regarding (digital) assets within that environment
· the human foundation and human problems at the center of a technology approach — e.g., instead of focusing on delivering a specific feature or product, focus on meeting holistic human needs while delivering a thoughtful feature or product.
Why do we need human-first design?
Designing with a human-first technology approach is a value lever for businesses. It means more than software requirements or general accessibility concerns. By correctly executing human-first design, digital trust can be formed between consumers and businesses, resulting in opportunities that both economically and socially benefit stakeholders.
Implementing human-first design is more important now than ever before. With the hype of the metaverse and the explosion of generative AI tools, plus cloud computing, IoT sensors, edge networking, and XR devices — the digital and physical worlds are blurring evermore together. We are all spending more and more of our lives online. As a result, technology is evolving, more data is being generated and leveraged than ever before, and technology applications are becoming increasingly ingrained, moment to moment, throughout our day.
The urgency for businesses to adopt human-first design has arisen from the sheer quantity and sensitivity of data being collected about each of us and utilized in everyday processes. Society must understand how the human rights that exist in the physical world can translate into new digital worlds. For example, an individual’s biometrics can be used to authorize online payments. Facial recognition is being used for purchase consent in grocery stores. Voices are analyzed via home assistance devices to provide services. Smartwatches capture extensive health information. Immersive headsets used for Mixed Reality and Virtual Reality can now track eye movement, pupil dilation, and more.
Inherently, these functions are neither good nor bad; they simply provide utility and perceived convenience. However, without proper responsible innovation practices — including ethical principles and human-rights considerations in digital spaces — these functions can quickly cascade into unintended consequences for both consumers and providers.
Human-first is a call to recognize that if the future of the internet is to be a blend of digital and physical worlds, the digital worlds must mirror human expectations of the physical world throughout our engagement.
Isn’t Human-Centric design sufficient?
The term human-centric and human-first should not be conflated. While seemingly similar, the terms are akin to the phrase, “a square is always a rectangle, while a rectangle is not always a square.” Correspondingly, “human-first design is always human-centric, while human-centric design is not always human-first.” Put plainly, human-centric design tends to focus on delivering a specific product or service, while human-first design focuses on delivering a technology approach that supports a product or service.
Traditionally companies have focused on curating “human-centric” user interfaces and providing enhanced user experiences while interacting with a product or service. However, this has rarely been extended to the “back of house” functions that support those products or services. Given that the human experience is more than UI/UX or data supply chains and model outputs, there is clear need for design shifts. Companies who proactively adopt a human-first approach will be the first to benefit from this new value creation in the metaverse.
Part 2: Why Human-First Applies in the Metaverse? [coming soon]
Authors Disclaimer — The views in this post were developed and researched by the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views/position of Accenture, the World Economic Forum, their partners, or related practices.
Matthew Price, PhD — Manager — Responsible Metaverse Practice — Metaverse Continuum Business Group — Accenture. Fellow — World Economic Forum — Defining and Building the Metaverse
Anna Schilling, MS — Manager — Data & AI Strategy Practice — Accenture Applied Intelligence Group. Fellow — World Economic Forum — Defining and Building the Metaverse