Why should we accept the short-sightedness of designing emotionless technology? It’s time for designers to bring empathy back into the tech industry.
When Eric Mauskopf’s phone beeped excitedly, it wasn’t because someone had liked his picture on Instagram. Nor was it a retweet, a Facebook like or a new video from his favorite Youtuber. A PDF file attached to an email turned his world upside down forever. He found out over email he had cancer.
It is easy to dismiss this as a case of negligence on the hospital’s side, but it highlights a massive issue that permeates the tech industry and the services it builds. Cold, heartless systems are being designed without any empathy towards its users, even if this is initially unintentional. A machine could rationalise that an email was an efficient way to deliver the news — it avoided Eric having to make a trip to the hospital. But we are not machines after all, and designers should start recognising this instead of building systems that strive for efficiency while losing sight of the individual they are intended for.
Designing for efficiency
It is clear that the healthcare industry isn’t using technology and design enough to become more efficient. For instance, administrative operations in the US are responsible for wasting $190 billion dollars every year.
Well designed technology can play a vast role in tackling administrative costs, and even more so with preventive solutions that can save millions in healthcare spending for people with chronic conditions. Telemedicine has proved it can improve people’s lives by for example preventing strokes, with products such as Babylon’s app allowing users to talk to a GP on their smartphone. But is adding an AI doctor, also part of the service, a good feature or just an excuse to follow the current bot trend? It could lead to hypochondriacs feeling increasingly anxious, self-diagnosing terrible diseases they may never experience. How can we ensure these always on, smart services are mindful? A doctor should be so much more than just a symptom checker, and current artificial intelligence can’t provide this level of empathy.
If we allow it, Eric’s experience could become the new normal. Just like the Victorian Era’s fear of being buried alive, we are undergoing a similar major time of transition, bombarded with knowledge while having little time to adjust. Health issues could end up being another notification on our smartphones, constantly playing on our minds.
Designing for fairness
Insurance companies are also on the verge of a massive shift. Using tracking technology, our insurance plans could become more efficient and therefore cheaper if we lead safer, healthier lifestyles. For instance, using Snapshot, good drivers can now pay lower insurance rates by monitoring and analysing their driving habits with a simple device installed in their car.
This type of services may seem ideal to healthy, law-abiding citizens, allowing them to pay fairer charges. After all, they could promote healthy habits and safer driving, while cutting costs.
But this way of looking at the world highlights the issue at hand. Most tech companies have a median age of under 35. Healthy, younger designers and engineers will find it hard to fully understand the ramifications for people who are older, with chronic conditions or disabilities. They need to step out of their bubble and interact with diverse layers of society that will be affected by their products. This conscious engagement should be a vital part of the design process.
Designing with empathy
With complex technology like VR and bionics emerging, defining what kind of interaction people need on a human level will become increasingly harder to define. Is seems plausible that ‘neo amish’ communities will emerge in the near future, where many people will reject the idea of embedding technology into their bodies or live most of their life in virtual reality. We may be facing the biggest societal divide yet to be seen, and what side we end up on could rely massively on where we stand today.
Empathy is a trait common to all humans and may well be the key to our species’ success. It has become an undervalued trait that we never include on our CVs, yet it’s what allows us to design the best products and shape the world in a positive way. After all, we are designing for people.
If we want to build technology that lasts, it’s going to be essential that we apply this uniquely human trait throughout the creative process. Many companies are already taking steps towards this, such as Microsoft, who has Saqib Shaikh, a blind developer, working on Seeing AI, a project to help improve the lives of people with visual impairments.
Drawing on people’s real-world experiences will allow us to create deep, inclusive, life changing products that really do make the world a better place. Fully innovative solutions that are not only useful but also ethical, anticipating how they may shape people’s lives. Products designed by humans, for humans.
